


The Missing Link

by emma98



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Clueless Darcy, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Korg is life, Korg?, Romance, Sam/Okoye, Smitten Steve, background Bucky/Nat - Freeform, happy ending guaranteed, infinity war fix it, minor Jane/Thor/Sif, no one dies if anything I bring more people back to life, screw you Thanos you giant purple nutface, some angst but I promise I'll make it better, spoilers for Infinity War, very plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14493150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma98/pseuds/emma98
Summary: Thanos has a grand plan to unite the infinity stones and remold the universe in his vision.There are quite a few people who will come together to stop him, and they aren't the Avengers. Or SHIELD.  Or even the Revengers.  But they're led by Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, so---Yeah, good luck with that universe cleansing plan, you maniacal purple bastard.





	1. Contingency Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Guys! I had to do this. I love reworking canon around what I want things to be, so it's been a puzzle I immediately began trying to figure out even before the credits rolled on Infinity War.
> 
> Here be spoilers! The story starts moments before the movie starts. There will be a few scenes in and around the movie and then in a few chapters we'll be getting into POST Infinity War stuff. 
> 
> FYI, I didn't list all the characters, because that was SO much work. But every character that you can think of will be here. 
> 
> Special thanks to ragwitch/queenspuppet. she's awesome and she beta'd this for me super duper quick. And she's made of magical rainbowbarf.

_**Chapter One:  Contingency Plan** _

 

* * *

 

 

**_Space_ **

 

“Brother….”

 

Loki couldn’t physically stop himself from his nose wrinkling as the view of the vast and infinite cosmos was totally eclipsed by a much larger and deadly looking ship that was so close that the nose of it nearly brushed against their own spacecraft.  He and Thor had just made peace with one another. They had formed a plan to travel to Midgard and request amnesty for the remaining Asgardian people. Thor was hopeful that they could find Sif, who was guarding Jane Foster on Midgard.

 

“Brother?” Thor asked again, tapping a stunned and silent Loki on the shoulder.

 

“I didn’t do it,” Loki automatically mumbled, his words like muscle memory.  

 

“Brother,” Thor arched a knowing eyebrow.  “We need to know what we face now.”

 

“Thanos---”Loki whispered.  He turned to acknowledge Heimdall, Valkyrie and the Hulk. “Brunehilde---you must go.  To Sif and Jane Foster on Midgard, tell Sif---”

 

“Jane?” Thor looked slightly confused.  He looked to the last remaining Valkyrie and looked a little chagrined.  “Don’t tell her I sounded so--- _ hopeful _ when I said her name.”

 

“Find her and tell her the end is near.  Sif will understand. Jane will look to the fluctuations of the gamma pathways.  They can be prepared,” Loki said quickly. 

 

“Tell her I said hello,” Thor mumbled.  He shook his head immediately and said, “But in a cool, nonchalant way.”

 

“Tiny Star Doctor in danger?” Hulk asked.

 

“She’s in danger?” Thor snapped to attention at that, looking suddenly fierce and protective.     
  


“Yes, she could very well be,” Loki admitted, looking at his brother quizzically.  Apparently the entire  _ end is near  _ had had escaped Thor’s notice.  Or perhaps he was so conditioned to hearing about the potential end of the world over his fifteen hundred years of life that it no longer registered.  Loki looked back to the ship that surely contained Thanos. “But then again, so are we all.”

 

“Hey---uh---that’s Thanos, yeah?” Korg asked as he strolled, as casually as a large formation of rocks could, to the terrifying conversation that was happening by the large window of the ship.  “If you don’t mind, me and Miek will get off then. We’re not too interested in being killed wastefully, you know. Much rather have it be for something useful, yeah?”

 

“Heimdall?” Thor questioned the man who had raised him nearly as much as his own parents.  “How many can you send away?”

 

“How well can your illusions work, Loki?” Heimdall answered Thor’s question with another question.  

 

Loki closed his eyes and his skin turned a pale blue as he focused on the incredibly realistic illusion he would need to fool the Mad Titan.  When he opened his eyes again, they were a vivid and intimidating red. He turned to look at Brunehilde and she gave him a saucy smirk in return, refusing even in the height of tension and battle to be surprised by him.  

 

“Send as many as you can, Heimdall,” Loki advised.

 

“Hey!  You lot!  We’re going on a trip, yeah?  C’mon in!” Korg called out to the remaining Asgardian people as Heimdall summoned a small Bifrost portal and began to beckon for his fellow Asgardians to begin to step through.

 

Loki smirked back at the last Valkyrie.  “Until we meet again.”

 

Brunehilde only rolled her eyes and stepped towards Heimdall, intent on following the rest of the refugees to Midgard, when Thor stopped her by putting a hand on her shoulder.  Her smirk melted just a bit into a more friendly smile and Thor’s answering smile was both encouraging and nervous.

 

“Don’t tell Jane about my hair?” Thor asked hopefully.  “I mean, if you do, at least tell her it suits me.”

 

* * *

 

 

**_Earth, Suriname, South America_ **

 

The sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline, harsh and unrelenting and perfectly timed was probably better than any percussion in any song she had ever listened to.  If she kept her eyes closed, and let the slightly cool, salty breeze from the ocean push against her face, she might even be able to convince herself that life was pretty darned sweet.

 

The beeping of the machine at her side couldn’t be ignored forever though, and Darcy Lewis reluctantly opened her eyes to see what was happening.  The machine wasn’t overly complicated. It looked like an ipad, if an ipad had been designed in 1998, and the display showed a flat, dichromatic picture of Earth.  There was a ping of light blinking in time to the beeps the machine emitted and it was situated firmly in New York City. Just as it had been doing off and on for quite a few years now.

 

“New York City, again?”  Jane Foster called out from about twenty yards away, where she was fiddling with some kind of machinery in the back of her van.

 

“Yeah!  The Cookie Crisp Wizards are at it again!”  Darcy called back, opening a college ruled notebook that she had gotten for a mere ten cents from a drugstore in Minnesota.  She’d bought two whole dollars worth of notebooks six months ago, sacrificing her own vending machine money and sadly, this was her last notebook.  

 

All twenty of them had been filled with numbers that might be nonsensical to some.  But they listed the date, time, geographic coordinates and type of portal that had been created.   Twenty notebooks full of the same type of portal except for a handful. One of the unusual portals had been created by Heimdall, and had brought Sif to good ole Midgard a few weeks after Ultron had happened.  Thor had sent her to protect them.

 

So far, all Sif had done is have some strange, flirty, secretive relationship with Jane that both of the women thought Darcy didn’t know about, but Sif was just like Thor and had no problem joyously announcing when she’d rocked Jane’s world in the name of her King----so yeah, Darcy  _ knew _ that Asgardians were freaky deaky because she’d heard it all first hand.  

 

And when Sif wasn’t busy getting all up in Jane’s business, she had gone out in search of who was using highly advanced portals in New York City.  She had found that it was wizards manipulating particle matter to create doorways around Earth. Sif had not been impressed by the sorcery, and had labeled the men meddling with portals to be harmless and their science to be inferior to Jane’s.  

 

Darcy wondered at that though.  Maybe Sif was too besotted to say anything.  

 

There were two other instances of non Cookie Crisp, aka Heimdall portals.  Darcy paged through one of the older notebooks and saw the date from the November prior when the rainbow portal had opened in New York City.   Darcy and company had been in Haiti at the time, forced to hide in Accord-less countries, and had not had the opportunity to chase down the portal arrivees physically.

 

Darcy had figured it out less than an hour after the portal had closed, thanks to Instagram.  Jane and Sif had been less than pleased that Thor had spent less than a few hours on Earth and had not sought either of them out.  Sif softened her anger at Thor, however, when Heimdall stopped answering her calls altogether. Something was wrong on Asgard, and it worried the warrior Goddess.  Darcy snuck a peak behind her and sure enough, the Asgardian was marching resolutely around the perimeter of the beach, not even bothering to hide her weapons as she fiercely protected Jane and Darcy both from the totally innocuous birds that swooped by them on the beach.  

 

Sif had protected them from worse.  When Jane had refused to sign the Sokovia Accords two years ago, she’d also given General Thaddeus Ross two double middle fingers,  _ literally _ and called him a  _ waste brained bag of flaccid, impotent dicks _ .  The ladies had walked out of the New York Avenger’s Facility, and would have been arrested at their hotel had it not been for Sif’s muscles and Darcy’s quick thinking and surprising ability to hot wire a van.

 

They had been on the run across the globe ever since, gathering data about portals and (Jane) spending time building better ways to recreate miniature rainbow bridges.  

 

Darcy’s phone rang, and she immediately answered it.  Only one person ever called that phone, and it was wise not to leave that one person hanging.

 

“What’s up boss?” Darcy’s tone was bright and friendly, despite the fact that she had never met the person on the other end of the phone.

 

“Lewis,” the scratchy, deep, feminine voice answered.  “How is the equator?”

 

“Tropical and humid,” Darcy answered back.  “Although the humidity is rough. On both the hair and the boob sweat.  I mean, honestly, why hasn’t anyone figured out a better moisture wicking bra?”

 

“If I could find one, I’d pass it along to you,” Madam Mystery (Darcy’s pet name for the voice on the other end) replied.  There was some noise in the background of the call, two men’s voices pleasantly and enthusiastically chatting. Darcy had caught those voices before on calls with Madam Mystery.  They were deep, attractive sounding voices, and Darcy liked to imagine that were part of Madam Mystery’s harem. 

 

“You got a job for me, boss?” Darcy wondered, turning to her side and reaching for her bag to drag out another ipad (this one was slightly more advanced than the machine that was tracking the portals).  Jane may be okay with working on ugly, duct taped machines, but Darcy had a little more pride than that. 

 

She booted up the program she had designed, basing it on Jane’s portal tracking program, but tailoring it for a very different type of energy. Darcy wasn’t tracking portals. She was tracking an impossibly powered yellow stone embedded into the forehead of a six foot one artificial intelligence as well as bursts of energy that had the same signal as the giant man baby android who walked around using JARVIS’ voice.  

 

Madam Mystery had somehow fed-ex’d a cellphone (old school flip style) to Darcy when she, Sif and Jane were hiding out in the wilds of Canada.  Darcy was going to turn down the offer, but found that the money that Madam Mystery had already deposited into a secure account for them was more than enough to get her to say yes.  So Darcy’s little side job of tracking down two super powered people (one former Avenger, one sort of current Avenger) was the reason why she, Sif and Jane could afford to stay on the run.  

 

“Gimme just one second,” Darcy fumbled with her pad and booted up her programming.  The men in the background of the phone call seemed to teasing each other or lightly bickering and Darcy couldn’t help but ask, “So, how’s business?”

 

“Booming,” Madam Mystery assured her.  The phone sounded muffled for a second and the woman on the other end obviously barked some kind of order to the other men, who immediately shut up.  

 

Darcy could respect a woman who kept control of her potential harem so well.

 

“I’ll send the coordinates to your system.  The energy is showing up in Scotland,” Darcy revealed.  She squinted at the screen and snorted a small laugh through her nose.  “Right on top of each other, actually.”

 

“Someone might as well be enjoying themselves,” Madam Mystery muttered.  “Thank you, Lewis.”

 

“Hey---uhm, hold on,” Darcy said quickly before her faceless, sexy voiced benefactor could hang up on her.  She swiped her finger on the pad in front of her and frowned, “There’s a different kind of energy within a ten mile radius of them.”

 

“Direction?” the woman asked, all business immediately.

 

“Uhm---straight up?” Darcy revealed.  “Like---in the air.”

 

“I’ll be in contact.  Stay safe, Lewis.”

 

The call ended abruptly and Darcy stared at her screen, wondering what kind of thing could be displaying that kind of energy on her program.  She stood up and brushed the sand off of her rear end, intent on schlepping to the van and asking Jane when the older, portal radar pinged again.

 

“Cookie crisp wizards again?” Jane shouted from the back of the van.  “They need to chill the fuck out with their playing, or else Thunderbutt Ross will be coming after them next!”

 

“No, Jane, not the Cookie Crisp wizards,” Darcy disputed.  She looked up into the bright blue sky and squinted against the brilliant lights of the Bifrost.  “We have company.”

 

Jane tumbled out of the back of the van and ran towards Darcy, and Sif, like a finely tuned instrument entirely devoted to Jane’s well being, came sprinting towards them as well.  The lights of the Bifrost erupted ten feet away from the trio of women and when it dispersed, thirty people stood before them.

 

Along with a giant blue rock person.

 

“Oh, hey.  Tiny, pretty women,” the rock smiled and waved at them.  “Are you lot ready for the end of the world, then?”

* * *

 


	2. A Rock and a Soft Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so very, very, very much for the fantastic reception to this story. We're going to have a lot of fun, I think.
> 
> So, spoilers for the movie. This is in and around Infinity War, mostly around. The first chapter happened right before the first scene in Infinity War. Now, the scenes in this chapter are happening right before Sam, Nat and Steve go rescue Wanda and Vision.
> 
> whew. AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaandd chapter warning for Bro-tps galore, including some new ones. I LOVE FRIENDSHIP.
> 
> Speaking of, thanks so much to Queenspuppet/ragwitch for the awesome beta-ing. I really appreciate you, rainbow barf queen.

**Chapter Two: A Rock and a Soft Space**

* * *

 

  
**_International Airspace above the Atlantic Ocean_ **

* * *

  
  
  
"Got her?" Steve asked Natasha as she hung up the phone and immediately set a flight path for Scotland.

  
  
"Yeah, did you track down little Sally?" Sam looked up from his tinkering with his wing pack.  His smirk spoke of a man taking his enjoyment wherever he could find it, and in this case, it was finding it in needling and picking at his friends.  "Little Sally ran off again with Tommy from across the street to play doctor and now big brother and sister have to track them down before they figure out that rubbing up on each other feels good and---"   
  


"Stuff it, Wilson," Steve advised, though he was actively trying not to smile at Sam's teasing.  "If you're saying crass shit about Wanda, I guess you're through with your bitchin' about wanting a vacation?"   
  


"Nah man, I always want a vacation from your hairy face," Sam sucked at his teeth, his smirk growing even more as he engaged in the most entertaining pastime he had found to occupy his less action-filled moments in the last four years: namely, giving Steve Rogers sass.     
  


"You want a vacation to Wakanda, is what you fucking want," Steve sassed right back, giving just as good as he got.  "I don't see why you would want one, when you go, Okoye is too busy being better than you to have to endure what you call wooing."   
  


"Fuck you, Rogers," Sam shot back.  He stabbed a bit of his wing set that he would surely have to have Shuri fix whenever they did get the chance to go back to Wakanda.  It had been at least six months of being on the road, going on missions that Natasha kept finding and Steve kept accepting.    
  


It also didn't help that every time they went to Wakanda, Sam was incapacitated in someway.  He'd been shot straight through the shoulder at a skirmish in some godforsaken desert and he'd woken up in Shuri's lab with Bucky staring down at him and poking him with a literal stick.  Then there had been the time he'd gotten a face full of gas from an abandoned Hydra base in the mountains of Europe. He'd woken up in Shuri's lab again, this time with both Shuri and Bucky poking at him with literal sticks.  The last time had been when he'd suffered a severe concussion after a pallet of ammunition had fallen on top of him.   
  


Again, he'd woken up in Shuri's lab.  Bucky, Shuri, and an absurdly tall man covered in fur all poking him with sticks.   
  


And each time, he'd gotten less than five minutes of facetime with the fiercest, hottest, most amazing woman on the planet.  The guy with the fur had warned him last time that Okoye had been burned by romance and politics in the past. Sam had easily replied that he now followed the man without a nation, so politics weren't really an issue for him.     
  


He had no shame in his youthful, exuberant perusal of the General of Wakanda.  And no amount of teasing from Steve or Natasha or Bucky or Shuri or the tall one with the fur could stop him from mooning after her every moment she was in his presence.   
  


She was THAT amazing.   
  


He drifted a little from the current conversation in the quinjet with all of the Wakandan extras installed.  Thoughts of that fierce glare melting into an amused and indulgent smile the last time he had spoken to Okoye distracted him and when he came back into it they were a few miles outside of British airspace, heading fast towards Scotland.   
  


"I don't understand what the big deal is, Romanoff," Steve was complaining.  "If you're not here, I'm going to need a way to contact your resources in tracking down Wanda and Vision."   
  


"If I'm not here, I think it's safe to say that you're already dead," Natasha calmly told him.   
  


"Stop quoting the Office," Sam called out.  “It was better and less lame when you quoted random eighties movies.”   
  


"Oh, you're checking back in?" Nat quipped.  "I'll have to make sure Okoye gets the report that you were drooling for just twenty minutes this time."   
  


"I just thought that we were past when you thought you needed to keep secrets from me," Steve sighed heavily, looking weary suddenly.   
  


"Ohhhh, pulling out the big guns," Sam called out playfully, holding his hands over his mouth to cover the chuckles.   
  


Natasha leveled Steve with a calculating look and it took her only a second to realize that he was simply being a little shit.  She turned her attention back to the flight controls.   
  


"Activating dampeners and deflectors for a silent landing," Natasha revealed.  Her phone buzzed and she looked down to see a message. "My contact says the unknown energy signature has closed in.  And that she's dealing with a problem of her own."   
  


"She's dealing with a problem? Is she alright?  Does Sif have it handled?" Steve demanded, all teasing and games gone immediately.  "If Jane or Darcy are in danger, we can be there as soon as we pick up Wanda and Vision, eta---"   
  


"You little SHIT," Natasha glared up at Steve.  "How long have you known it was Darcy Lewis feeding me info on Wanda and Vision’s location?"   
  


"Uhm---" Steve shrugged his shoulders and tried to look as innocent as possible.   
  


"You just aren't as stealthy as you used to be Nat," Sam teased.  "And Sharon Carter waxed philosophical about Lewis' pretty mouth being a little too smart for her liking last time we all gathered for drinks at the safehouse."   
  


"Eighteen months ago?" Natasha asked of Steve.     
  


She knew of Steve's little infatuation with Darcy Lewis.  When things clearly fizzled between he and Sharon, it was rumored that it was because Steve kind of had a pre-existing  _ thing  _ for someone else.  Natasha had been unable to get exact details about it, but she had enough.  Steve had a huge crush on a woman he'd only met three times in the last four years and apparently, she had never spoken a word to him directly.     
  


"No wonder you've been such a little shit about getting a name from me on the Mind Stone tracker," Natasha rolled her eyes.   
  


"I just think she's---special," Steve sighed, just a tad too dreamily for the hardened, bitter former Captain America.   
  


Sam looked around Steve's bulky shoulders to share an amused look with Natasha.  Steve's crush on Darcy Lewis may be a hopeless case thanks to Steve's inability to open his mouth in front of her, but it was definitely cute in a way Steve Rogers usually didn’t allow himself to be.   
  


Also, it was prime blackmail material.   
  


Natasha's phone buzzed again.  "She needs asylum for three dozen Asgardians."   
  


"What? Are they okay?  Is there a status on Thor?" Steve blinked himself out of his dreamy reverie, getting back down to business again quickly.   
  


A blast of red energy from below, right where Wanda was reported to be, drew all three former Avengers' attention and focus away from whatever Darcy Lewis' problem was.  All of the former levity and good natured teasing was blanketed with a well worn layer of tense awareness as they got focused on the task at hand once more. Steve's jaw was set and his mind focused as Natasha stealthily landed the plane a few hundred yards away from whatever Wanda and Vision were dealing with.   
  


His hand itched for the shield that had been missing now for two years, but he covered for it by running a hand through overgrown, dirty blond hair on the top of his head before ordering,   
  


"Let's go.  Tango Bering procedures, on my mark."   
  


* * *

 

**_Earth, Suriname, South America_ **

 

"I don't know, Thanos sounds like a new-fangled, bad internet meme transitional word. The.  That. Then.  _ Thanos _ ."

 

Three pairs of eyes narrowed in on Darcy and her interjection into their hurried explanations regarding the arrival of thirty-odd Asgardian refugees.  Apparently, Asgard was destroyed. Odin was dead (again). And now Thor, Loki, Hulk and Heimdall were trapped on a ship that was about to be boarded by the/that/then/thanos.  Jane brushed off Darcy's words quickly, being the most conditioned to Darcy's typical nervous reaction to any bad news. Namely inane, sarcastic chatter.

 

Sif tried to make sense of Darcy's words for an extended moment, thinking that they would somehow be helpful, but quickly shook herself out of it.  The Asgardian warrior went back to looking at the  _ other  _ Asgardian warrior.   Sif's expression when looking at the last Valkyrie shifted from awe to suspicion very quickly.  

 

And that very last Valkyrie was looking at Darcy with a delighted and bemused look, as if she had just lucked out and found the prize in the cereal on the top of the box instead of buried beneath too many crunch berries.  Darcy, still nervous from the very bad news of Asgard being destroyed and Thor very likely getting crushed under the/that/then/thanos, managed to wink at the Asgardian warrior legend like she was a cartoon character then wave with a small burst of exuberant cheeriness.

 

"Miek is right, it seems like a poor idea to call a mad Titan somethin' like that, but I fancy myself to liking a poor idea every once in a while," the pile of rocks that called himself Korg declared in a decidedly New Zealand accent, patting the little purple guy consolingly on the head.  "But if you gotta go, then better to go out with a bang, yeah? We'll call him  _ That  _ from now on."

 

"Or  _ That nose _ ?" Darcy helpfully supplied.

 

The rocky brows of the alien being went up in delight and he looked down to Miek, who seemed to not be on board with the idea.

 

"You'll be our new battle partner then, tiny Midgard Cuz, smart brain like yours, I reckon you'd be able to knock a few blocks off proper.  Oh, hey, how are you at printing pamphlets, then Tiny?"

 

"I'm pretty great at it, actually," Darcy answered with an honest to goodness sunshine-filled smile back at the big, blue rocky Korg.

 

"Well then, we'll see you right, Tiny," Korg bobbed his head minutely.  He looked around at the other three women in the impromptu meeting and asked, "Not to take a piss on what you have here, but is this new Asgard, then?"

 

"This is a beach," Jane answered back.  

 

"Right, right, nice one, too, but they'll be needin' food probably.  Maybe clothing, unless that sort of thing is optional on this planet," Korg pondered, looking to Darcy who shook her head in the negative for his benefit.  "Asgardians are a hardy lot, I mean, their last King and their new King got their eye poked in and they seem to be alright, yeah?"

 

"He what?!" Jane stepped forward.  Sif put a gentle hand on Jane's shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

 

"Thor was always doing ridiculous things, I'm sure he's fine," Sif reassured her.

 

"Well, no, not really though,” Korg disputed.  He shrugged and took a preparatory breath before rambling, “He got a hideous haircut by a half blind man, then the hammer that pulled him off got broken---"

 

"Mew-mew?" Darcy whispered forlornly.

 

"Oh, sorry, Tiny. You were close with the pulling off hammer, then?" Korg questioned.  "Never knew a hammer to have so many mates. I mean, I'm sure it died a noble death, or I mean, as good a death as an inanimate object could have, eh?"

 

"Look, the big pile of rocks is right," the Valkyrie finally interjected, looking simultaneously bored and amused at the turn the conversation had taken.

 

"About the hammer pulling them off?" Korg questioned.  "Weird, man."

 

"We need somewhere to go," Valkyrie looked to Sif.  "Loki said you would know what he was talking about when he said the end is near."

 

"I---I volunteered to be part of the sentinel guard after Loki was brought back to Asgard and imprisoned for his crimes against Midgard," Sif admitted.  She shrugged, looking annoyed, "He would---chatter nonsensically. About what he had seen, what he had done. What was going to happen."

 

"Racy stuff, then?" Korg prompted.  Darcy snorted with laughter and Korg looked to her with a rocky, appreciative smile.  

 

"Loki kept saying Thanos," Sif whispered.  "And that he had failed Thanos."

 

"Not a good place to be in," Valkyrie rolled her eyes and let out the smallest of exasperated sighs.

 

"So, That nose wanted Loki to invade Earth back in 2012?" Darcy questioned.  

 

"He wanted to do more than that," Sif shook her head.  "He wanted to obtain all of the infinity gems on Midgard."

 

"Gems?  Multiple?" Jane furrowed her brow.  

 

"Space, Time, Reality and Mind," Sif relayed.  "All four of them have inhabited Midgard at some point in time."

 

"The Aether is gone though," Darcy argued, looking at Jane with sympathy.  "And Thor said that was the Reality stone."

 

"Physically, it's been taken from the planet, to the Collector," Sif admitted.  She too looked at Jane, sympathy and concern stealing over her features for a moment before she came back to business.  "But it does have lingering effects. Someone may be able to detect that Jane held the Aether within herself."

 

"She---she did?" Valkyrie interjected, looking delighted at the news.  She brought a heavy hand down on Jane's back in a slap, making the diminutive astrophysicist jerk forward a step.  "Well, if Thor can get his shit together, looks like Asgard would have a proper queen again."

 

"Thanos will come to Earth and look for the stones," Sif steadied Jane with a hand gripping her forearm.  The touch lingered and softened before she moved her hand further down, tenderly clutching Jane's hand in hers.  "Loki---in his dreams, he would show illusions. When Thanos gets all the stones---"

 

"He'll have a fabulous bracelet," Korg supplied helpfully.

 

"Or maybe a tasteful engagement ring?" Darcy was more hopeful.

 

"He plans to wipe out half of the life in the universe," Sif revealed, a deep line forming between her brows.  "With all of the stones at his command, he could do it in the blink of an eye."

 

Silence extended among the small group of women who were now burdened with the safety of the remaining Asgardian people as well as the knowledge that half of them could be wiped out by a lunatic alien.

 

A small squeaking sound escaped the purple insect in Korg's arms and the tall rock-alien looked down and shook his head.

 

"Bad taste, Miek.  You gotta keep your gas in at times of high tension, yeah?"

 

* * *

 

**_Wakanda_ **

 

"Has the Wakandan Kingdom fallen so far that they are incapable of feeding a colonizer properly?"

  
  


Bucky Barnes looked up at the sound of the deep voice shouting the taunting, teasing words. The Jabari leader sauntered into view, taking a steep hill as if it were just a small step before continuing  towards where Bucky had set up his work for the day. He'd been repeatedly told it was unnecessary work, and that Nakia had been steadfastly suggesting that she give him covert field work that would be more suitable to his skill set.  But clearing the land of brush, tending to the trees and the wild plants throughout the entire day was much more relaxing for Bucky.

 

"The White Wolf of Wakanda is not so much a ferocious spy as he is an elderly man puttering about a garden all day," M'Baku laughed as Bucky delicately pruned at a branch on an incredibly old tree.  "To imagine that some tribes were frightened of you at first."

 

"Hey now, I used to be scary," Bucky disputed.  

 

"Yes, perhaps when you ate and could fuel muscles," M'Baku looked unimpressed at Bucky's current stature.  "When we viewed footage of Berlin, you were a match for the Black Panther, and now you look like one of those slender Korean boy banders the Princess child is so fond of."

 

"Not all of us can build popeye muscles with just literal spinach," Bucky said dryly, smiling when M'Baku laughed heartily at him.

 

Theirs was an unusual friendship.  In order to obtain a new arm, comprised of vibranium and Wakandan technology, Bucky would have to prove himself worthy as an outsider to the gifts that the King was willing to bestow upon him.  Some of the tribes had been a hard sell, Bucky had had to be humble, kind and hardworking. 

 

The Jabari had been easier.

 

He'd simply had to defeat M'Baku at arm wrestling.  And he had. One handed.

 

After his initial embarrassment, the Jabari leader had accepted his defeat with some grace, and had taken Bucky on a hunting expedition in the mountains.  Bucky had been worried about how he would spear any animals one armed, but it turned out 'hunting' had meant foraging for large, meaty mushrooms that grew in the dark, damp corners of the woods at the base of the mountains.  

 

"I brought you treats on the way down, White Wolf," M'Baku held out a small sack that was surely full of the mushrooms that Bucky had quite enjoyed during his months living and befriending the Jabari people.  

  
  


"When do your friends return?" M'Baku questioned.

 

"Last call I had with Steve said they would be looking for some down time soon," Bucky revealed.  "And Shuri said something about needing to upgrade their gear."

 

"And the Princess child does not like to be kept waiting in regards to her toys," M'Baku said knowingly.

 

"She doesn't.  Although, I'm not sure if Miss Maximoff will be coming in this time around--so," Bucky's eyebrows did two knowing bounces even as M'Baku looked outraged at his words.  "It's alright to have a crush, pal. Just don't get your heart broken because she's with that robot fella."

 

"Your words are insulting, I have no lust for outsiders," M'Baku grumbled, his nose wrinkling in annoyance and his mouth pursing in a pout.  "Perhaps I just wish to poke the bird man with a stick again."

 

"That'll be fun," Bucky nodded in agreement.  He did love poking Sam Wilson with sticks.

 

"Or maybe I just wish to see you sneak off with your own outsider," M'Baku teased, squinting in the distance to see the King and his entourage approaching Bucky's workspace, a large box carried along with them.  "You would be an ideal friend if you did not come attached to the little Panther."

 

"That's your King," Bucky reminded M'Baku playfully.  

 

"Hmmm," M'Baku rolled his eyes before sighing.  "I don't feel like paying my respects to him today.  Enjoy your mushrooms and send word when we get to poke the bird man with sticks again."

 

"Bye," Bucky nodded before looking in the direction of the King of Wakanda.  He began clearing up his gardening mess, trying not to worry too much about what was in that box.  He had the slightly sinking feeling that things were about to get a little hectic.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M'Baku. and Bucky. M'Bucky. BROTP. 
> 
> Also, Darcy and Korg. Karcy. BROTP. 
> 
> I really love my brotps.
> 
> And I really love all of you who read this crazy. Next week hopefully Jane and Company find a safe space not only for the Asgardians, but also for themselves!


	3. Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MOoooooooonday. boooooo. 
> 
> But also, Monday, new chapter!
> 
> Alright, at this point in the story, Iron Man and Spider Man and Strange Man are off planet, plotting with the Guardians on how to take Thanos down. Steve and company are in Wakanda now with Vision being looked at. Thor, Rabbit and Tree are talking with Peter Dinklage (WHO WAS TOTALLY COSPLAYING AS BUCKY IN INFINITY WAR)
> 
> Huge thank you to my witchy word beta, Ragwitch/queenspuppet. She is so fantastic.

**Chapter Three: Sanctuary**

 

* * *

 

**_New York City_ **

  
  


It was clear that there was a shortage of wizards in the world.  

 

Wong could feel the loss of Doctor Strange as his energy travelled so far away from Earth that there would be no chance of accessing him via sling ring.  He had returned to the Sanctum to try and bring together people to fortify Earth's shields from whatever nemesis had attacked New York. The damage to the sanctuary had been extensive, but he had still put out the call.

 

And he had gotten no response.

 

With the death of the Ancient One, without Strange, with Mordo lost to the wind, Wong felt a little lonely.  It was usually his preferable state of being, but not when there was so much to be done. He stared at the hole in the sanctum’s main staircase and couldn't help his irritation bubbling to the surface.

 

"Why am I always left alone to clean these messes?" he grumbled under his breath, bringing up his right-handed sigil to begin the reconstruction.

 

The sudden blast of warmth at his back, along with what felt like the strangest, most explosive burst of magic tickling along his spine had him spinning in place, raising both hands in a defensive position.  

 

"Lower your hands, magician," the tall warrior woman ordered calmly, her hands on a broadsword.

 

"Drop your weapon, Alien," Wong answered back calmly.

 

"Your awful Earth magics will have no effect on this steel, I promise you that," she countered, steely blue eyes narrowing.  

 

Wong rolled his eyes at the accented woman's declaration.  "Let's see then---"

 

"Hold on!"

 

A smaller, bespectacled woman hesitantly stepped through the strangest portal Wong had ever seen.  She had both of her hands held up and a small, friendly smile pulling at her lips. Wong squinted at her in confusion as the young girl--who clearly lacked magic, obviously was not super powered in any way, and was decidedly human--walked past the warrior who made an aborted attempt to stop her.

 

"So---funny thing." The small human girl was still giving him a friendly smile with her hands up while she walked further into the Sanctum.  "The Sokovia Accords are a helluva thing."

 

"State your business," Wong ordered.

 

"Oh my God, my nana would have slapped my ass for that." The girl looked apologetic.  "I'm Darcy Lewis. That's not important, but it's polite. I'm going to guess that you didn't want me to call you Cookie Crisp Wizard."

 

Wong gave her the world's slowest, most irritated, incredulous squint of his eyes that he could muster.

 

"Right, not Cookie Crisp Wizard, so, Kind Sir," Darcy improvised.  "The Sokovian Accords."

 

"We did not sign any kind of contract with the governments.  You should state your business or leave," Wong left the threat of 'or else' out of it, but the lady warrior raised her broadsword, garnering his attention as he turned his sigils to her again.  

 

"Cease your magic!" the warrior roared.

 

"Drop your weapon!" Wong countered with exasperation and anger.

 

"Woah, dudes, seriously, dial back the Mexican standoff, no one is an enemy here," Darcy scolded the both of them.  She glared at the person who had come in the portal with her and ordered, "Sif, we went over this. Diplomacy over bloodshed in a crisis.  You're acting like Tall, Blond and Godly right now."

 

The one called Sif scowled at her and like magic, her posture lost its rigid, righteous anger.  Wong dropped his hands slightly too, the sigils going smaller. He looked to the little woman who still had her hands up.

 

"I totally don't care if you signed the Sokovian Accords or not," Darcy made a little shrug.  "Because the United States of America  _ did _ , and while that sucked for a lot of super powered people, it did have hidden loopholes that the USA missed.  Namely that should super powered individuals burn, pillage and use a person's homeland as a heroes and villains romper room, then the countries that signed the Accords must offer asylum to the refugees."

 

Wong opened his mouth to argue, but Darcy was having none of that and continued to speak rapid-fire as she walked back to the portal and waved her hands.  Suddenly, as she was speaking, three dozen people walked through the portal and filled the main entrance way of the Sanctum. They were obviously having a bad day; covered in dirt and soot, some of them sporting small injuries, each of them looking exhausted.

 

"Look, I know this is probably an annoyance to you, but my friend Sif here says that you guys know sorcery, and have managed to hide in plain sight for centuries and whatnot. And these people?  They're the last of the Asgardians. They need to be hidden in plain sight more than anyone right now. Oh, this is Korg, he's cool, no need to make your magic hand circles bigger," Darcy rambled.

 

"Heya," the blue rock creature waved a craggy fist.  He held up a small purple alien and said, "This is Miek.  You got a giant hole in your floor, mate. You need some help with that?"

 

"And here's the thing," Darcy continued as the last of the refugees made their way through the portal, followed by a similarly small woman who held mechanized controls in her hands.  "The universe is gonna end as we know it, unless we figure out a solution to stop Thatnose and his grand plan to make the most ridiculous fashion accessory of all time, and for once in my life, I'm NOT exaggerating, even though I totally wish I was.  But apparently he's jonesing for some super powered stones here on Earth and if he gets them, he's going to---"

 

"The Infinity gems?" Wong questioned, dropping his hands completely.  

 

"You know about the Infinity Gems?" the small woman with the mechanized controls pushed forward to stand right in front of Wong.  

 

"Oy, you lot, make yourselves useful then, let's fix this for our host!" Korg shouted out amongst the Asgardian refugees.  

 

"Doctor Jane Foster, this is---Kind Sir that is not at all a Cookie Crisp Wizard," Darcy awkwardly introduced them.

 

"My name is Wong." He took a deep breath, looking around as the alien refugees, who were surely Asgardian, began to tend to the hole in the floor with advanced tools that were not from Earth.  "If this Thatnose is trying to obtain the Infinity Gems, he may have just gotten his hands on the Time stone. Come with me, there is work to be done."

 

 

* * *

 

**_Wakanda_ **

 

"So.  How's life outside of Paradise?"

 

The irritated tick of Sam's jaw was honestly enough to give Bucky enough joy for the next hundred years, but like hell was he going to stop poking the man with metaphorical sticks.  Steve was upstairs in one of Shuri's lab with Vision and the others, and it was probably going to be the end of the world (again), so Bucky didn't see the harm in needling Sam Wilson as the apocalypse was about to blow wide open.

  
  


"Thought I should let you know, that W'Kabi and Okoye's marriage bonds have been formally dissolved.  About five months now," Bucky continued on with an airy, teasing grace that he certainly had rediscovered from his days as regular old Bucky Barnes, the Smug and Cocky Asshat King of Brooklyn.  "You gotta respect the way they do things here in Paradise. I mean---they still managed to be friendly, no nastiness between them at all."

 

"Hmph," Sam answered back noncommittally.

 

"I mean, if someone wanted to court Okoye now, they'd probably have to be interviewed first by the ex-husband," Bucky conjectured.  "That'd be a helluva first date. Husband. Wife. New Love Interest."

 

"You are on my LAST nerve, Barnes," Sam grumbled with a wrinkled nose.

 

"Music to my ears," Bucky grinned.  He took a breath and decided to give the man a (slight) break in the teasing.  "So, how's Steve been these last few weeks?"

 

Sam glared at Bucky, but then, very, very quickly, the glare morphed into a smug smirk.  And suddenly he wasn't annoyed Sam anymore. He was now Samuel Thomas Wilson, snarky and sarcastic Pain in the Ass of Bethesda, Maryland.  Bucky had the good sense to narrow his eyes at Sam slightly, which really only made Sam's smirk go wider.

 

"Steve?  Steve who you talk to once every other day and text about three times an hour?" Sam asked.  "Or would you rather know about the other person I spend way too much time cooped up in a jet with?  You know---the newly blonde lady. The one who you stare at whenever she's in a room? The one that somehow supplied Shuri with the perfect chronological order of a bunch of jumbled memories of the Cold War for your broken up brain?"

 

"Stuff it, Wilson," Bucky mumbled.  

 

"What exactly is he to stuff?"

 

The Xhosa accented words in their ears made Sam jump to attention, a smile stretching across his lips while Bucky simply rolled his eyes as fondly as he could and continued to look over the picturesque view of Wakanda's rolling hills. Bucky felt comfortable in Wakanda.  He was just as comfortable here as he had been a young man cavorting around Brooklyn. He would flirt with the elder women of all of the tribes. He would happily corrupt Shuri with awful slang straight out of the 1940's. And in turn, he would go along with anything the young Princess/Genius wanted to do.  Many a time, he'd had to run interference with Queen Ramonda so that Shuri could get a free, unsupervised moment to do something nefarious or dangerous. 

 

T'Challa had tried to introduce legislature that would require the unholy combination of Shuri, Bucky and M'Baku to have some kind of chaperone when they congregated together.  The legislature had nearly passed, had M'Baku not soundly barked it down. 

 

But there was one person that Bucky did not EVER mess with.  And it just so happened to be the dame that Sam Wilson was in a dizzy over.

 

"Barnes, what is to be stuffed?" Okoye demanded over the communication units.  

 

"Don't you uh---have things to be doing upstairs?" Bucky asked hopefully.  "With the maroon fella wearing the cape?"

 

Sam, meanwhile was grinning as if the moon had been handed to him.  There were many times when Bucky's needling, as well as Shuri's teasing, and M'Baku downright pointing and laughing at him had put Sam in a slighty sour mood.  He shook it off and sassed them pleasantly back. But in all that time, the only person to have ever taken up for him had been Steve.

 

He never would have dreamed that Okoye would be doing it.  It gave him some meaningful reasons to try and get through this year's apocalypse.  Okoye was willingly offering her impressive and mighty protection. That was almost as good as getting her number.  

 

"White Wolf, I am taking this opportunity to tell you that my friend the Black Widow would like to remind you that you currently hold her weapon," Okoye snapped back, each word feeling like it was intended to be a lash against his knuckles for naughtiness.

 

Bucky gaped like a fish and made no real sound as he tried to come up with something to say.  He should have said that the gun was the perfect balance for his hand. That it was the first gun in a hundred years never to jam on him.  

 

...that he had taught Natalia how to care for firearms decades ago, and she clearly remembered each lecture.  Bucky wanted to know what else she remembered. Because he remembered everything now.

 

"Like an antelope in headlights," Okoye muttered to someone else in the room she was in. 

 

"Something's happening," Rhodey announced from the air, prompting both Sam and Bucky to look up to the sky.

 

Bucky's grip tightened on Natalia's gun, his eyes peering at the aliens coming into the Earth's atmosphere and he finally found his voice again, "Yeah, something is definitely happening."

  
  


* * *

 

**_New York City_ ** ****_  
_   
Jane definitely didn't need to see the magic shifting windows.  Darcy was pretty sure that it would make the astrophysicist's brain explode.  It was bad enough that she had witnessed Wong walking through a doorway to Hong Kong, coming back with another exasperated Cookie Crisp Wizard and a large amount of levitating books.  Jane's questions had been instantaneous, rapid fire and borderline insulting as she demanded to know how the portal worked 'And don't tell me MAGIC, Sassy Bald Santa Claus, because that's a load of bull!'   
  


Sif had been forced to use the super comforting touch that usually made Jane a puddle of goo.  It was just in time, too, because Jane had pulled out her small toolkit that she kept stuffed in her bra and looked as if she were about to take apart the 'magic' door completely.  All of Jane's mania was then subverted into disseminating the ornately decorated books that had been retrieved. Darcy's eyes had glazed over after opening up the one about the purple space stone, unable to understand the floating letters on the page.     
  


Wong had bluntly stated that Darcy couldn't read it (while quite a lot of the other refugees and Jane could) because she lacked magic.  Which couldn't be further from the truth, because she specifically used all of her magic NOT to flip her middle finger up at the condescending wizard.  Darcy wandered further into the Sanctum, seeing that Korg and all of the remaining Asgardians were making themselves useful by nearly rebuilding the entire staircase already.   
  


The Asgardian refugees had been there less than two hours, and already they had managed to be a hundred more times useful than Darcy, who wandered up the steps of the Sanctum and stared out the windows of the three doors that Doctor Jane Foster absolutely never needed to know about.   
  


The scenes coming through the glass were beautiful.  One second she was staring at a lush jungle, a simple town square light up by moonlight and a ridiculously crowded street.  The views would shift every so often, and she'd be staring at three different places on Earth. Darcy was fairly certain that if she turned the knobs on any of the three doors, she'd be transported to that place.     
  
  
She didn't know how many of the scenes she had actually witnessed, but she did notice when they became decidedly---other worldly.  There was a rust colored planet, and she could see the unmistakable gleam coming off of Iron Man's suit as he zipped around, battling something.  Something big and purple.   
  


"HEY!" Darcy shouted out, reaching for the doorknob and hesitating as Iron Man worked in tandem with a handful of other people (although the guy that was a lovely cornflower blue and ridiculously muscled didn't look like a typical kind of  _ human _ person). "HEY!  WONG?!"   
  


The other window lit up with harsh sunlight and bright blue skies, and Darcy saw a different fight beginning on a beautiful landscape.  Again, her eyes were drawn to the crimson and gold armor of Iron Man, this time that ridiculous large, bulky set of armor meant to battle the Hulk.  The armor was running down a hill, and fell as hovering craft transported troops,  _ Wakandan _ troops, to an invisible line in a field where more people lined up for battle.   
  


On one of the hovercrafts was a guy with a metal arm staring down at a blonde head of hair attached to someone who  _ looked  _ like the freaking Black Widow.  Darcy’s eyes darted around and she gulped at the sight of the King of Wakanda and someone who appeared to be Goth Captain America. 

 

Epic preparation for battle aside, Steve Rogers could rock a _badass_  sexy beard.  

 

"SOMEBODY COME LOOK AT THIS!" Darcy shouted.   
  


The third window was dark except for pinpricks of light that Darcy knew instinctively were stars in a part of the galaxy that she and Jane had not had the pleasure of looking at yet.  The view panned to a planet, or at least Darcy thought it might be a planet, a hollow moon, maybe. Gray and desolate and abandoned.   
  


She squinted as the brightest light she had ever seen erupted and she tried to make out what was there, her nose pressing against the glass.  There was someone in the middle of all that. Someone holding it all together or forcing it all apart, Darcy couldn't be sure.    
  


"Holy hell, I know those biceps," Darcy whispered, before turning and shouting as loud as she could, "JANE!  It's THOR!"   
  


All three panes of glass went gray and bright and Darcy was suddenly looking at a snow covered cliff, a lone figure dressed in a black, decrepit robe standing out, looking over the edge.   
  


"Creepy ass, rip off dementor," Darcy whispered.   
  


The figure in the glass turned, as if it had heard her insult, and the blood red skin of the ghoul moved as the muscles in its face turned and twisted to smirk at her evilly.  Darcy had the good grace to know who that was. The history books had packed the World War Two chapters with glossy, beautiful, vintage photos of Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes and the rest of the Howling Commandos, to be sure.  But they had also dedicated a lot of space to heinous artist interpretations of the figure Darcy was currently locked in a staring contest with.   
  


Her whisper was barely heard this time, as the sound of feet began echoing behind her.   
  


" _Red Skull._ "   


* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun duuuuuuuuun
> 
> big plot points dropping next chapter.
> 
> And an unexpected reunion!


	4. Ordinary Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday, everyone! Here we are again, getting closer to the fixing it of the fix it fic. Thanks to the amazing ragwitch/queenspuppet for the beta brilliance. she's more awesome than cake.
> 
> The timing of this chapter is right after the forcefield at Wakanda is opened up, Thor is almost done creating his new ax, and Thanos is like twenty minutes away from getting his time stone. whew. 
> 
> ready for something so ridiculous I actually had the thought of 'maybe this time I've gone too far?'...then read on!

**Chapter Four: Ordinary Girl**

* * *

  
  


**_New York City_ **

  
  


"Darcy!  Darcy! What happened to her?  What did your crazy magic house do?"

 

Wong narrowed his eyes at the tiny scientist woman who had done nothing but challenge and question him since she had used her man made portal to drop in on the New York Sanctum a few hours ago.  She'd demanded all of the data he had on the infinity stones, waving her hand impatiently to dispel the helpful illusion that had entertained the Iron Man earlier that day. 

 

Jane Foster had no time for magic, she was solely devoted to fixing the problem that threatened to tear the universe apart.  She'd gathered the Asgardians with any kind of knowledge of physics, space, and philosophy of all things to help research. Her warrior lover, Sif, had run around the Sanctum and come back with the small, chatty human's phone, and the warrior spent her time bringing various allies and scientists on speaker phone to consult with Jane.  Before Wong knew it, the study he had made his own in the last few months was now a war room with a petite astrophysicist in charge of everything.

 

And he found that he and his own associate from Hong Kong were following her orders naturally whenever she demanded to know what texts they had on the nature of the soul stone.

 

The chatty little human who had soothed over the potentially disastrous entrance of the Asgardians and company had disappeared long ago.  Wong trusted she was leading the other Asgardians in making themselves useful. But then she had shouted and they found her in front of the doorways, eyes wide and unblinking, staring into the glass which showed nothing but a bright orange glow.

 

"She's just having a nap, standing, right?" Korg suggested.  "I do it all the time. Best way to catch a couple of z's, you know?"

 

"Wong."

 

The word came from Darcy, but certainly didn't SOUND like Darcy.  It wasn't her chirping, lilting tone with the little scratch on certain words.  Her face didn't emote with that irrepressible need for mischief and entertainment.  Her eyes weren't twinkling with that irreverent humor she so often spilled over everyone.

 

Also, the strange, old, Gaelic accent might have given it away.

 

"Ancient One?" Wong answered.

 

"This young woman is a beautiful sort of soul," not-Darcy answered, looking down at her hands.  "Such courage and care and love for a girl so small."

 

"What have you done to my friend?" Jane demanded harshly, looking to Sif quickly for assistance, nodding when the woman who had seen to her every need for four years pulled a dagger from her boot.  

 

"I am not harming her," not-Darcy promised.  "She has---vacated the premises."

 

Jane grabbed Sif's dagger and took a step towards Wong threateningly.

 

"Put her back, or I swear I'll---"

 

"She is on a peculiar sort of mission," not-Darcy admitted calmly.  The placid serenity looked out of place on Darcy's features. "Does she often take on projects that are outside of all of her abilities, Doctor Foster?"

 

"Ever since 2011," Jane bit out, putting the dagger down.  She looked back to the windows, all three of them showing the same bright orange glow.  "Where is she?"

 

"She is attempting to bargain," not-Darcy answered.  "With the soul stone."

 

"Thanos approaches, he holds the soul stone already," Wong contradicted, knowing that he had felt the shift in power.  "Ancient One, it is our duty to protect this world, and I fear we cannot, please if you can, use this body and help."

 

"Oy, that seems not quite right, mate," Korg interjected, as hotly as the not easily flappable boulder of a being could.  "This one seems powerful, yeah, but Tiny is way more fun to chatter on with."

 

Darcy, or the Ancient One gave Korg a well-meaning smile before turning to both Wong and Jane, "You forget that souls are different.  They are not magic. They are not science. Souls linger."

  
  


"For as long as someone can remember them," Valkyrie muttered from the fringe of the group of people who had rushed for the doors.  

 

"Wong, you will have to give Doctor Foster anything she requires.  It will not be easy to do something so dangerous," the Ancient One sighed.  "But if this young Darcy can do what is needed, if she can strike a bargain, then we may be able to accomplish our goal."

 

"What's that goal, then?" Korg asked.  "Just in case anyone else hasn't been able to keep up, you know.  I mean, I've been paying attention."

 

"Our goal is to stop a madman who is more powerful than any of us combined," not-Darcy answered.

 

Korg sighed heavily, his stalactite chest crunching with the weight of it.  He gave Darcy a baleful look and muttered, "I liked you better when you really are Tiny and not possessed Tiny, you had better ideas then."

 

* * *

 

**_Wakanda_ **

 

The creatures were straight out of the kind of awful book that Bucky would have wasted a nickel on at the age of twelve.  He would have devoured it in slivers of light from his bed and then he would have been hard pressed to fall asleep after. Then he would have stumbled to Steve's house the next day and proceeded to try to scare the daylights out of him by retelling the tale.

 

Even as an underfed, underweight, undervalued little guy of eleven years of age, Steve hadn't ever been as scared as Bucky had been about the imaginary demons in the world.  Nearly a century and a foot of height and a hundred pounds of pure muscle later, Steve still didn't seem so scared. He was slashing through monsters with those shields that Shuri had put together nearly two years ago (two days after Bucky was once again out of the ice).  

 

He wondered if the Princess/Genius of Wakanda had managed to put in the upgrades on the shields that he and M'Baku had requested.  Then again, no one would be able to hear the little kitten mewls and growls emitting from the shields over the ear deafening screeches of the otherworldly meeting their demise.

 

Bucky used his metal arm to fling a rapidly approaching alien beast, before taking aim and mowing down a row of them that were trying to get closer to the lab where the maroon colored fella with a cape was currently getting 'downloaded onto a zip drive'(Colonel Rhode's words, not Bucky's).  

 

One of the beasts jumped up and over the line of his brethren corpses, and got too close to Bucky. He easily grabbed his favorite knife from his thigh holster and met the wicked thing that lived in his twelve year old nightmares.  He took out two more of them in revenge for those sleepless nights, and took a breath when he was done, a rare pause in the action.

 

"Still good with a blade I see."

 

Bucky looked up and couldn't fight the natural inclination that had his lips lifting up in a charming little sideways smirk.  The Black Widow stared back at him, her hair and its ridiculous color not distracting from the beauty that had been cropping up in his dreams since 2014.  He would know those eyes anywhere. 

 

"Stop flirting, we have business to take care of," Steve shouted as he used his body as a battering ram and knocked over three of the aliens in one go.

  
"Wasn't---I---" Bucky looked a little flustered as Natasha smirked at him knowingly.  He swallowed and gathered all of the swagger he had left back in 1944 and focused his words on Natasha instead of his teasing best friend.  "When a lady of her caliber compliments your skill set, it seems right to be flattered."   
  


"Flattered," Steve grumbled, bracing himself as alien bodies began flying towards him, being hurled from further down the hill.   
  


The loud, guttural growls of battle were unmistakable and announced M'Baku's presence before he appeared in the clearing with the two super soldiers and Black Widow.  He held the head of one of the beasts on a large Jabari wooden spear and seemed to glow with the satisfaction of a well fought battle against nefarious foes. Until his face transformed into a squinty eyed tableau of teasing as he focused on Steve.   
  


Steve had the good grace to look mildly chagrined.  He had spent a lot of hours in M'Baku's company in the past two years.  At this point, the leader of the Jabari tribe felt like a missing member of the Howling Commandos.  Bucky and M'Baku got on like a house on fire. Between the two men and Shuri, Steve had flashbacks to the time Gabe, Bucky and Dum-Dum would try to lure the entire SSR encampment into ridiculous pranks and ill-placed mischief.   
  


But neither of the former Howling Commandos had ever been so protective as M'Baku.  The man would tease Bucky and Shuri like an unrelenting sibling, but the moment an 'outsider' would try to tease them, M'Baku would go after that outsider with any weapon, mostly heated angry words.  Outsiders could be defined as Steve, T'Challa, any unfortunate passerby who gave a look that wasn't pleasant, and definitely Sam. Always Sam, actually.   
  


"M'Baku, Steve is annoying me," Bucky playfully tattled before tossing a chuckling Natasha a wink.   
  
  
"Perhaps Captain Kitten Claws should tend to his own house," M'Baku declared, casually thrusting his spear into another oncoming alien without even bothering to glance in its direction.  He focused on Steve, a slow smile growing that was clearly designed to torture whomever it was bestowed upon. "That is, unless he's taken some kind of action in securing his own partner."   
  


"I wonder if he has," Bucky looked at Steve expectantly.   
  


"He finally let me know that he knows that Darcy Lewis has been helping me out," Natasha casually explained.     
  


"Progress, no matter how pitiful!" M'Baku combined his praise with irreverent mocking, like it was his default setting.  He turned to Natasha and asked, "Now, perhaps you can have him talk to her in the next five years."   
  


"Let's not go too fast, maybe they should just be in the same room together," Natasha countered.   
  


"What are we talking about?" Shuri's voice came over the communication units each of the warriors on the field had.     
  


"Rogers' and his adorable inability to say words to pretty dames," Bucky answered.

  
"Oh yes, I have come up with a plan utilizing the new speaker system that can be built into a nanite.  I can combine it with the bracelet I used on Everett to control his movements," Shuri said very quickly.     
  


"Are you---would you essentially be driving his body?" T'Challa spoke up at that, sounding very worried at the implications.  "Shuri, we discussed this, you can't---"   
  


M'Baku began barking as loudly as possible to drown his 'King' out.  Unfortunately his surefire method of ignoring and silencing T'Challa's well meaning decrees of what was ethical and proper to do garnered attention from a fresh wave of aliens.  At least two dozen descended on the quartet in the clearing. M'Baku and Steve worked back to back, with the Jabari's spear reaching and Steve's  _ kitten  _ claws getting anything that dared to come closer.   
  


Bucky and Natasha didn't work back to back, but they did fall quickly into what looked like a well rehearsed, elaborate and deadly violent dance.  Both fighters had always handled their weapons as if they were a natural extension of their own limbs, vibranium or otherwise, but now they were using each other as weapons.     
  


Natasha leapt within reach of Bucky and without forethought or hesitation, he grabbed the tips of her fingertips with the new vibranium limb, pulling her in.  She used the momentum and instead of a twirling spinning skirts of a swing dancer, there was the rapid and forceful kicks of Natasha's powerful legs as Bucky yanked on her hand to bring her up in an arc.     
  


Steve had remembered the first horrible alien invasion in 2012, and how Natasha had so easily decided to let him launch her into the air to board a Chitauri aircraft.  It hit him now, eight years later, that it hadn't been the first time a super soldier had thrown her as if she were simply a very beautiful, very deadly human grenade. Bucky swung her over his back and effortlessly brought his gun up, spraying a line of bullets towards the aliens at his front as Natasha let loose with her Shuri-upgraded widow's bites at the aliens coming towards Bucky's back.     
  


They spun on the battlefield, weapons appearing out of nowhere.  One particularly impressive bit had Natasha reaching into one of Bucky's utility pockets and pulling out a new magazine for her rifle, replacing it while Bucky lashed out and provided cover with the vibranium arm.  The reload had happened effortlessly and before five additional minutes had passed, the duo had taken down thirteen more beasts.   
  


"The White Wolf still has bite!" M'Baku crowed.  He nodded towards Natasha and said, "But just to be sure,  you must continue fighting alongside of him, Little Bug."   
  


"Little Bug, really?" Natasha huffed out, pushing blonde wisps of hair out of her face.   
  


"I'm already trademarking it," Shuri muttered.  "Along with introducing the fables of Little Bug and White Wolf into the children's virtual curriculum."   
  


"Shouldn't you be trying to finish things with Vision?" Steve wondered, his curiosity was malice free, as he found it especially hard to ever be even a little exasperated with the incredibly exasperating Princess of Wakanda.     
  


"I can multitask, it helps to soothe my mind," Shuri answered back.  "Now, about your problem with Darcy Lewis."   
  


"How did you---"   
  


"It's foolish to go into an ambush blind, Nomad," Shuri vocally waved off Steve's concerns.   
  


"The child is really growing into her brain," M'Baku praised.   
  


"I like when this Darcy posts pictures of her dinner to her secret Instagram," Shuri revealed.  "The lasagna she makes looks very appetizing."   
  


"What in the---" Steve shuddered and felt something go cold over his entire body.  A shiver worked through him, like something was wrenching him away from his physical frame and he squeezed his eyes shut before opening them and seeing an orange haze in front of him.  "What?"   
  


He heard the concerned voices of his team, even Shuri in his ear, asking if he was okay.  He tried to focus on the orange glow in front of him, and maybe it was just the fact that they were just talking about her, but he could have sworn for a brief second he saw little Darcy Lewis standing in front of him, her hand outstretched in front of him as if she were trying to gently touch his face.  He went to reach for her.   
  


It wasn't safe for her to be here.  And he'd rather eat one of the aliens than see her be hurt by one of them.  But the glow quickly vanished and he was left to stand there alone, with his teammates staring at him in concern.   
  


"Fine---I'm fine," he shook it off.     
  


"Wanda's hitting the ground!" Sam shouted into the comms.  His words had M’baku running off immediately. "So if you guys are done with your afternoon tea, maybe it would be better to get back to this fighting aliens end of the world shit."   
  


* * *

 

**_Somewhere_ **   
  


It was the first warm day of spring.  Not really hot, but there was no frigid cold of winter to lash against her skin.  It felt like nothing, really. That first perfect day in the springtime where there was no cold and there was no heat, and it was just comfortable.  Darcy loved those days.   
  


She wanted to enjoy it, to soak it in, but then the feelings began creeping in.  Her own had faded forever ago, the shock of seeing the Red Skull had been intense and terrifying.  He was supposed to be long dead. Steve Rogers had sacrificed nearly seventy years of his life to ending the Red Skull.  But the red-skinned Nazi Skeletor dementor had looked straight at her, and what was more, he had started to rapidly float towards her window in the Sanctum.   
  


She'd blinked and then the perfect weatherless day had distracted her, keeping her eyes closed as she let go of the rush of fear and just enjoyed the beautiful, calm weather.  Her fear faded and she felt the edge of warm contentment, like she'd been wrapped in a freshly washed fleece sweatshirt that was far too large for her, the fabric comfortably curling over her knuckles.   
  


Next came a rush of heartbreak, and she flinched away from it, feeling like needles were pressing into the skin on her clavicle, the pain of it creeping up her neck.  She mentally turned away only to run head first into panic, a million hammers pulsing through her, demanding action that she couldn't give.   
  


For one brief shining moment, she felt something that she'd never felt before.  It was more than warmth and contentment. It was giddy anxiety, the tips of her fingertips buzzing happily with it.  She could feel a breathless giggle ghosting through her throat, even though no sound came out. It was comfort and exhilaration all wrapped up into one and Darcy marveled at the feeling, wondering if she could feel it again.  She desperately wanted to know what it was so she could feel it again. All the time, if she were able to manage it.   
  


She could imagine it right in front of her, the source of the feeling. The size of it was solid and imposing and  _ comfortable.  _ She imagined she could step into it and it would wrap strong arms around her, pulling her into its warmth.  She lifted her hand up wanting to caress it, knowing what it looked like without seeing it, she wanted to touch its face.  The person that was meant for her. 

 

"Love."    
  


The small voice broke into her reverie as the warm, unknown feeling faded too quick and Darcy was left with the anxious, tortured, heartbreaking feeling instead.  When Darcy blinked her eyes open, she was surrounded by an orange glow, standing on a simple slab of wood in the middle of a russet colored sea. To her left was a small child.     
  
A decidedly GREEN, small child.   


  
"Is your dad Bruce Banner?" Darcy whispered.   
  


The child looked up at her, the brief flicker in her dark eyes speaking of the mild amusement Darcy's question caused.  The child was a tiny thing, with long, curling black hair. She was dressed in fancy robes, and in her hand, she had a double sided red dagger.  Darcy knelt and looked at the girl as she tried to balance the blade on her fingertips.   
  


"You're really good at that," Darcy praised her.   
  


"I should be better," the girl answered.   
  


"Do you have a name?" Darcy questioned gently.  She looked around at the vast, limitless horizon of orange and sighed.  "There's a bad man who was just---well, he was just in front of my eyes.  I think we need to figure out how to keep us safe."   
  


"There was a bad man just here, he's---he's gone now," the little girl relayed.  "I'm---I'm Gamora."   
  


"That's a really pretty name, Gamora.  My name is Darcy," Darcy gave her a smile, but  spared a quick dart of her eyes around her, wondering if the bad man Gamora had talked about was the same as the Red Skull, and if he was truly gone or was about to ambush them at any moment.     
  


"We're safe here," Gamora assured her.  "How did you get here?"   
  


"I have no idea," Darcy honestly admitted.  She furrowed her brow at the adorable green kidlet and whispered, "Gamora, how did you get here?"   
  


"He traded me, my---he's not my father, he's not," Gamora was suddenly passionate, her hand gripping the dagger tight and looking more fierce than any child under ten had the right to.  "He just took me away after killing half of my people and he made me HURT people and then---he made a deal with the Stone and now, we're here. He didn't love me, that's not love, I KNOW what love is and it wasn't---"   
  


Darcy blinked rapidly to try to process what Gamora had just given her.  She reached out a hand and smoothed away heavy black waves from Gamora's face as the girl valiantly tried to fight back tears. She gave a quick glance around and the orange glow that surrounded them triggered something in her brain.  The illusion that she had thought cool when Wong had made it happen, but Jane had just waved away. He'd conjured up the image of the stones and where they were.    
  


The Mind Stone was with Vision, the Avenger.  Darcy wagered that he was mostly safe in the hands of the Avengers.  Because yeah, Tony Stark broke ties with Steve Rogers because Bucky Barnes came back from the dead and apparently boys could only be bff's in groups of three, and Steve's friend group was now full up with Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson.  Steve now ran a Freedom!Fighter!Group! with no nation and Tony was effectively collared by the Accords.    
  


But Darcy had met every single one of the Avengers over the years, even if briefly.  And she knew that those superhero types would hastily smooth over the old hurts to get the job done.  So the Mind Stone was definitely safe. Safe-ish.   
  


The Time Stone was in outer space with Doctor Strange (sure, Darcy had no idea what her life was anymore, because that sentence sort of made sense).  Wong seemed to think that the Strange dude could keep it safe. Something about his lifelong calling or something.    
  


All of the other stones were accounted for, namely, being in Thanos' possession, for the most part.  Valkyrie had reported that he already had the Power and Space stones. The Reality stone would surely be Thanos' in only a matter of time according to Sif, who said the Collector wasn't the most reliable of keepers.     
  


"Did Thanos sacrifice you for the Soul Stone?" Darcy whispered, looking around warily before settling on Gamora, giving her a small, sympathetic smile.  When the little girl sniffled and nodded, Darcy pulled her into a strong hug and whispered sweet words as the girl cried in her arms. "You're right, Gamora.  That wasn't love. That wasn't what a real father would do."   
  


Darcy held the small green child in her arms, allowing her to cry out her frustration and anger.  Other feelings kept licking at the edge of her consciousness, and Darcy gathered that it was from the Soul Stone, which she very much dreaded that she was INSIDE of, metaphorically at the very least.     
  


She wondered if her little merry band of scientists weren't cursed.  Erik had fallen victim to the punishment of the Mind Stone back in 2012.  Jane had housed the Reality stone in 2013. And here she was, trapped inside of the Soul Stone with the sacrificed adopted daughter of Thatnose.  If she got out of this one alive, she was going to have to call up her ex-end-of-the-world-makeout partner Ian to see if he hadn't fallen victim to time travel or power surges or whatever the rest of the stones could do.     
  


"He's going to kill half of the universe," Gamora whispered, her tiny, young voice sounding resolute and calculating.  "We have to stop him. ---I have friends. They can help stop him."   
  


"I have friends too, we're working on it," Darcy promised.  "But---what can be done?"   
  


Gamora shrugged, looking every bit the innocent child that Thanos had stolen away all those years ago.  Darcy tried to make her brain work quicker than it was, but it was difficult with all of the outside feelings trying to slide into her mind.  She stood up and kept a comforting hand on Gamora's shoulder before looking around and demanding hotly,   
  


"Hey!  Incorporeal Soul power, or whatever, can you ease up?"   
  


Gamora looked up at her in confusion, obviously not feeling what she was feeling.  Darcy wondered if it was because she was a human and Gamora was clearly not. She didn't know why she was feeling things she had no right to be feeling, but she knew it was coming from the Stone.  It had pulled her here for some reason, it had required a sacrifice and was now playing host that that adorable little green sacrifice.    
  


The Soul Stone was a sentient thing.   
  


Sentient things could be persuaded and while not a master of persuasion, Darcy was exceptionally good at one thing: relentlessly badgering. 

  
"Uhm---hey, Soul Sister--brother?  Non-gender binary Soul Stone?" Darcy called out.  "I want to make a deal with you. --Please?"   
  


* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the scene I thought I had gone too far on was Steve, Bucky, Natasha and M'Baku...and then Shuri, T'CHalla and Sam. I was---worried it was just too ridiculous, but then realized that most of you are very accustomed to me being ridiculous and that's why I love you all.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!


	5. oh snap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Memorial Day to the US people!
> 
> Here we are. The start of this chapter happens in between Thor getting his ax and arriving on the battlefield. 
> 
> Warnings for...everything? 
> 
> Thanks to ragwitch/queenspuppet for being brave and beta-ing this crazy thing for me! She's amaaaaaaazing.

  
**Chapter Five: oh** **_snap_ **

 

* * *

  
**_New York City_ ** ****__  
****__  
  
One second it was the Ancient One looking out of Darcy's eyes and the next moment she gasped for breath and crumpled to the ground as if her strings had been cut.  When she looked at Jane, who had fallen to her knees and was checking over her friend for injury, she took a breath of relief, because it was clear that there was no longer any ancient sorcerer piloting Darcy's body.   
  


"Holy hell, that was trippy," Darcy gasped out.   
  


"Tiny is back!" Korg called out in excitement, putting down the two-by-four piece of wood that he had been ready use in order to smash into the portal windows.  The picture changed from the ethereal orange scene from before and now all three windows were showing a separate scene on a battlefield in a lush, beautiful jungle.   
  


"What is that place?" Wong furrowed his brow, taking a step forward to see the warriors that were battling against dark, sinister alien animals.     
  


The warriors should have been easily overwhelmed, but they were proving resilient thanks to powerful metal and wooden weapons, as well as beautiful woven cloaks that were really far more advanced than they had any right to be, as they threw up forcefields to protect themselves if their weaponry failed.     
  


"That's Wakanda," Darcy rasped out, sounding like she had been screaming into the void for a few weeks.  "They---Thatnose is on his way to them. Jane, I made a deal, we have to---"   
  


The rainbow bridge illuminated at the bottom of the steps, and Wong hissed out in annoyance, rushing away from the congregation to find out who was going to come crashing through the Sanctum's foyer now.  He wasn't surprised when everyone followed, including Jane and Darcy as they pulled each other to their feet. There was a rolling sound of thunder, deep and unnatural and rattling every glass surface in the building.  When the light receded, Thor stood there, lightning crackling around him.   
  


"Oy!  Don't break the stairs, I just fixed those," Korg called out helpfully.  "And also, hey, you're alive. That's good, mate. Thought you were dead for sure this time."   
  
  


"Jane," Thor whispered, looking up at her like she was salvation.   
  


Jane remained silent, staring down at Thor in disbelief, her right hand falling to her side and her fingers searching for the hand that had held hers in the last four years, but Sif was standing some distance away, staring down at Thor in surprise and no small amount of worry.   
  


"Awkward," Korg whispered.  "Should we give them some privacy, then?"   
  


"Nice ax," Valkyrie chimed in. She looked unnaturally calm and collected as she asked, "How's your brother doing?"   
  


"Dead," Thor said quietly giving Valkyrie’s brief, stricken expression a sympathetic look of his own.  "I'm going to go find Thanos. But I had to---I needed to..."   
  


"I am Groot," the walking, talking  _ tree _ interjected.   
  


"Rude," Thor swiveled his head to the tree.  "When I introduce you to my other friends and chosen family, you're going to take heed of what you say or---"   
  


"Or you'll what?" the walking talking  _ raccoon _ chimed in.   
  


"Nothing really, it's an empty threat, my mother never had to finish those because my father would usually destroy something to instill the fear of HIM into us," Thor shrugged.  "Loki would usually be to blame, but it was fun--"   
  


"NO TIME," Darcy announced.  "Sorry big guy, but Thatnose is coming and you look---dope.  And very buff."   
  


"Thank you, sweet Darcy," Thor smiled winningly at her, his one eye slightly off track for a second. His smile looked wistful, as if he were remembering things that he had loved and lost.  He sighed and raw honesty colored his words, "I'm very happy you've managed to survive so long."   
  


"Thanks?" Darcy blinked down at him questioningly.  "Glad to see you---still studly? Cool hair. But wait---really, no time for this.  I made a deal and we have machinery to build and things to do.."   
  


"A deal?  With who?" Wong came back into the conversation, truly longing for the days when it was just him and Strange and Strange’s obnoxious cape in the Sanctum.     
  


"An Orange Infinity Stone?" Darcy shrugged.  "To kind of---thwart Thanos."   
  


"You won't need it, little one, I will handle Thanos," Thor promised.  "I simply wanted to say goodbye, should I not make it. I see my people are here with the only woman who could be their Queen.  Jane---"   
  


"Fuck right off!" Jane barked out.  "You go on and kill whatever. But you don't give me the long goodbye right now."   
  


Sif was suddenly by Jane's side then, reaching out and grabbing her hand in a tender, intimate gesture.     
  


"Oh.  OH," Thor caught the movement.  He focused his wounded puppy expression on Sif.  "I thought that I asked you to see to my lady's safety?"   
  


"I have been," Sif said calmly, not in the least bit bothered by Thor and his arcane possessiveness over Jane.  " _ And _ her well being."   
  


"But her well-being doesn't mean tender touches and loving looks and---SIF, I can tell that you know each other carnally, I can practically smell it on you and I---"   
  


"I am Groot?"   
  


"Yeah, uh, this might be a conversation that you don't need to hear, cause I am NOT explaining how birds and bees---or bees and bees works to you, that's Quill's duty," the raccoon shook his head slowly at the curious tree.   
  


"Have the wizard conjure an instructive illusion," Valkyrie winked at no one and everyone at once before fishing out a bottle of something she had grabbed from somewhere and nearly draining it in one go.   
  


"I have work to finish, but this is not over," Thor's gaze went from Sif to Jane and thereby went from annoyed to ridiculously loving.   
  


"You always have work to finish," Jane scoffed.  "Nearly four years of looking for pebbles."   
  


"Well, I'd hardly call them pebbles," Thor argued as gently as he could, looking a little scandalized and mildly annoyed.   
  


"You never thought once, never had it cross your mind that I would be helpful to you on your pebble quest," Jane continued glaring at Thor when he tried to open his mouth and argue about the word choice of pebbles.    


  
"Guys, really, there's no time!" Darcy announced, but was soundly ignored by everyone focusing on the unfolding melodrama.  She looked back to the windows and saw that the tides were turning in Wakanda. There were too many enemies and the humans (super and otherwise) were being overwhelmed.     


  
"I wanted to protect you, dear Jane, you know you are my only true treasure---"   
  


"BULL SHIT!" Jane roared.   
  


"RUDE!" Thor countered peevishly.  “I’ve had a very bad few days and---”

 

"I can protect myself.  I'm not your damsel in distress anymore.  I'm a SCIENTIST," Jane shouted. "And a damn fine one."   
  


"I know that," Thor assured her.  "I do know that."   
  


"I am Groot."   
  


"I don't know what being whipped means," Thor muttered to the tree, obviously annoyed by its interjection.  "But if it means loving that woman, then I will take being whipped daily."   
  


"First the hammer pulling him off and now this," Korg muttered.   
  


"I'll make it right, I swear," Thor promised.  "Don't give up hope on me, Jane. I love you."   
  


"Yeah, I get that," Jane sighed.  Sif squeezed her hand and Jane took a deep breath and allowed softness to steal over her features.  "I love you, too. Still. But it's different now, and we're going to have to figure things out."   
  


"Things?" Thor repeated, looking pointedly to where Sif and Jane were touching comfortably.   
  


"Yeah, things," Jane couldn't help the pull of a confident smirk.   
  


"I could just have Sif beheaded, she's technically betraying her King," Thor muttered.   
  


"Like father, like son," Valkyrie muttered from the sidelines where she now had a second bottle of something that Wong likely did not want her to have.   
  


"HEY!  NO BEHEADINGS!" Jane scolded Thor.   
  


"GUYS! SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Darcy screamed.  "A giant purple catheter bag full of puss and infinity stones is coming our way.  YOU!"   
  


She pointed at Thor.   
  


"Go and help out in Wakanda, take your fancy new ax and rainbow bridge and have it take you to Steve Rogers and HELP them."   
  


She pointed at Jane, "YOU, stop flaunting your ability to seduce Asgardians and go and grab your portal device, we need to make adjustments.  Namely we need to figure out how to fit a few trillion people in a very small space."   
  


She turned to Wong and said, "Do you have something to harness energy?"   
  


"What kind of energy?" Wong asked.   
  


"Oh, I don't know, like thirty bajillion souls worth of energy?  And a way for me to get it on a ridiculously powerful stone being held by a mad man?  And I know this is a longshot, but maybe a cloak of invisibility? Because if magic is real, maybe that is too?" Darcy shrugged, clearly out of her depth, but digging in for the long haul.  The rest of the congregation was motionless in the wake of her outburst, except for Valkyrie who was taking long sips of her bottle of ill begotten goods. Darcy looked around and blew out an exasperated breath, catching sight of Steve Rogers in the windows of the magic portal doors, looking like he was in serious trouble.     
  


She put her hands on her hips and yelled, "I TOLD YOU ALL TO DO SOMETHING.  GO AND DO IT, OR I WILL TAKE THOR'S SHINY NEW AX AND SHOVE IT UP ALL OF YOUR ASSES!"   
  


There was no lingering after Darcy's threat.  Thor gave Jane a tender look before lifting his ax and bringing the bifrost down over he and his companions.  Jane and Wong both went rushing through the Sanctum. Valkyrie seemed to look disappointed that she had missed her opportunity for battle, rolled her eyes up to the sky and took another long drink.  Korg bent down and picked up a small branch and leaf left behind from the talking tree before looking at Darcy with pride before whispering down to Miek.   
  


"Tiny is my new King.  Let's figure out how to make that happen for her.  Galaxy wide, yeah?"   
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
"How did you get this number?"   
  


"I bought it off a no good shyster carnie---hey, what's a carnie?" Valkyrie called out, feeling completely out of place with the phone to her ear and the script she had written down in front of her.     
  


She hardly thought that her skill set lent itself to using Midgardian technology to place what Jane had deemed 'telephone calls'.  She could use something stronger to drink than the tea that Wong's associate had served to all of the beings currently in the Sanctum, working as hard as they could to beat the clock and hopefully, eventually beat Thanos.   
  


She'd much rather be in that beautiful green jungle that Thor had arrived in moments ago.  The battle looked thrilling and Thor's new weapon was mowing down hundreds of enemies in one fell swoop.  She'd like to get herself a gun as powerful as that. But she wasn't fighting in glorious battle. She was in a Midgardian magic library, sipping on tea, thinking of a dead Jotun turned Asgardian floating in space.     
  


But, never let it be said that the Valkyrie did not cater to the Asgardian Queen's needs.  If Jane Foster told her to stab Thor, she wouldn't need to ask how much or what kind of knife, because Thor would already be riddled with stabby holes.     
  


"Oy, pay attention," Korg advised, waving a stalactite hand in front of Valkyrie's face.     
  


"Look, here's the straight of it, Jane Foster says something bad is happening, end of half the universe kind of stuff, right?" Valkyrie snapped out over the telephone.  "She's got a plan, but we're going to need help."   
  


"How did you get this number?" the man on the other end demanded.   
  


In the background, on the other side of the Sanctum, Jane's voice could be heard in a powerful screech, "FUCK YOU PYM, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF I INSULTED YOUR NECK JOWLS.  TELL ME HOW TO SET THIS UP RIGHT NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT HALF OF ALL LIFE EVERYWHERE DEAD!!"   
  


"Is that---was that Jane?" the man on the phone asked.  "The carnie shyster was, Jesus.  _ Fuck _ ."   
  


"My future Queen, yes," Valkyrie's smile was cat like and triumphant.  In all the things that were happening to the universe and her own world in particular, Valkyrie could not be prouder to have sworn her servitude to Jane Foster.  "I don't know who this Jesus was though."   
  


"Shit, I'll---Laura, get the kids together, it's bad," the man on the other end, Clint Barton, if Valkyrie was reading the name right, became a whirling, moving blur on the other end of the line.     
  


"Oy, is that Barton?" Korg asked, looking up from his own notes that he had taken when Darcy and Jane had started to plot out what needed to happen next.  "We got special instructions for Barton, Tiny was insistent---"   
  


"Oh, yeah, here it is," Valkyrie nodded, looking down at the chicken scratch writing.  "Arm Laura, because there's a good chance it might be her sticking around."   
  


"Hold on, what?" Clint demanded on the other end of the phone.   
  


"See here's the thing, your wife is your soulmate, right?" Valkyrie posited, casual and calm as she pleased.   
  


"Yes?" Clint asked warily.   
  


"Well, then, one of you will be heading somewhere---different," Valkyrie explained.  "It'll be soon and it'll be terrifying. Just giving you a warning so you don't get too upset."   
  


"You're not doing a great job," Clint huffed out.  "Can I speak to Darcy?"   
  


"Oh, no, she's way too busy saving half of the entire Universe.  Just weapon up and come make sure one of you can help us in the end," Valkyrie advised.  "See you soon."   
  


She threw the phone over her shoulder and looked pleased with herself for accomplishing one more person.  The sound of the phone smashing on the ground made her puff up with pride at a job well done.   
  


"Uhm, yeah, you forgot to tell him where to go and how to do it, and you didn't say goodbye, which is in the script, right here.  Tiny said follow the script, you know," Korg pointed at the scripts that had been scribbled down.   
  


"You're such a kiss ass, which is ridiculous because---"   
  


The air shifted and Valkyrie stood, looking up the staircase where the battle in Wakanda was still showing through the three windows that doubled as portals.  The threat of death and power and pain hung heavily in the air, half a world away from where Thanos had appeared.   
  


"Tiny!" Korg shouted.  "It's happening!"   
  


"ALREADY?" Darcy screamed from other parts of the sanctum.  Her footsteps were staccato and quick and were followed by three more.  "You're sure this will work?"   
  


The question had been posited to Wong who gave her a shrug.  Jane ran in behind her and handed her something small and speck like, nearly a piece of dust that Darcy held gingerly between her right thumb and forefinger.  Jane looked contrite and shook her head.

 

“I wished we had time to consult with Princess Shuri about the nanite, I mean, I attended her coursework online but,” Jane looked to be near tears and she shook her head slowly.  “There should be another way. We should have someone tougher do it.”

 

“The whole point is that someone weak will go unnoticed.  I’m human and powerless and magicless and harmless,” Darcy reminded her.  “I’ve never held an infinity stone and I haven’t created portals with my hands and I’m not an ageless Asgardian warrior.”

 

“That doesn’t make you unimportant,” Jane huffed out.  “To me.”

 

“Aww, Janie, I love you too,” Darcy assured her.  She put on her brightest smile and nodded, “Besides, this isn’t so different than what I did in London, right?  Or New Mexico, or Oslo, or anywhere. I’m just taking something your brilliant self built and sticking it somewhere, that’s all.”   
  


"What better option do we have?" Wong wondered.   
  


"None, here, gimme," Darcy held up her hands and looked only slightly queasy.   
  


Wong brought up his hands, the golden sigils appearing in the air.  The magic began sweeping over the small woman, each bit of energy causing a piece of her to fade.  Soon, it was only the slightest strip of her face that was present, the rest of her seemingly erased away. One more precise swipe of Wong's hands and every visible trace of Darcy was gone.  Her voice was clear as a bell still and everyone could hear her.   
  


"Well?  Am I invisible?"     
  


"Tiny?  You're invisible!" Korg called out in return.  The geological wonder turned to Wong and gave a nod, "Brilliant, mate."   
  


"Hurry---it will not last more than ten minutes," Wong advised where he thought Darcy was.     
  


"Okay---I'll be back!" Darcy chirped out, almost cheerful.  As if she were going to the end of the block to the bodega to pick up a loaf of bread and roll of toilet paper.   
  


One of the portal doors opened straight to Wakanda, where Thanos had arrived and was stalking towards Vision in clearing.     
  


"Good bye, King Tiny.  I'll always remember you," Korg said mournfully.  "If you hadn't been so easily bruised, I'd have hugged you at least."   
  


* * *

 

**_Wakanda_ **

 

The battle was  _ horrific _ .  Darcy winced as she hit the ground running, wishing she had not eaten all the fried food she and Jane had gorged on less than twenty-four hours ago.  She also wished she had been fit enough to do some sprints, too. Or at least a brisk walk. Cardio was not her friend.

 

The giant purple nut chin wasn’t her friend either.  He had tossed a lot of people to the side already, heading towards the last stone that he didn’t possess.  The flying bird dude from the Avenger’s went, well,  _ flying _ over her head, missing her by just a little as he landed hard.  

 

“Note to self, check on Bird Dude later,” Darcy whispered to herself.  Later. Later when they had won? Or at least, when Thanos had thought they were defeated.  

 

Darcy was having trouble keeping her thoughts together.  The Scarlet Witch was currently zapping the crap out of her boyfriend’s forehead with her incredibly powerful, incredibly undefined incredible super powers.  Darcy’s heart ached for the two young superheroes (or at least she thought Vision was young, he hadn’t been around very long).

 

She’d spent the last two years tracking their powers for an unknown contact of Phil Coulson’s.  The Scarlet Witch and Vision had spent two weeks together every few months, always at a new place on the vast planet, always hiding and in secret.  It couldn’t have been enough time to spend together, even though they had likely moved heaven and earth to have that time. And now here the Scarlet Witch was, essentially killing Vision in order to save the world.

 

To save  _ half _ of all the worlds, really.

 

She kept running, needing to get close enough to Thatnose to drop the nanite device that Jane had haphazardly thrown together.  If he noticed her running towards him, he hadn’t let on. With the way he was flinging superheroes here and there, maybe he didn’t care.  Maybe once she got close enough he’d fling her too.

 

Darcy took a deep gasping breath and ran forward.  It didn’t matter. She had to try.

 

Steve Rogers suddenly darted in front of her, not seeing her at all thanks to Wong’s magic.  He ran straight for Thanos and gripped the gauntlet in his hands, screaming with the effort. Darcy realized that it was now or never.

 

She got close to the giant purple dickweed and the man who was calling on every ounce of strength he had to hold him back.  With the nanite speck between her fingertips, her trembling hand slowly moved forward.

 

“Just a little more, Cutie, just a little longer,” Darcy begged out loud, doubting Steve or Thanos could hear her whisper, what with Steve shouting and Wanda’s magic and the thunder booming overhead.  She wouldn’t dare call Steve Rogers  _ Cutie _ to his face.  She didn’t feel like getting laughed at by the perfect human specimen.

 

She felt a pull to the orange stone on the flamboyantly garish gold gauntlet, feeling a warm whisper from it, like it was repeating the promise she had made in order to cement her deal to the Infinity Stone.  She nodded slowly to affirm her end of the bargain before delicately letting the nanite drop on top of the stone.

 

Just in time, as Thatnose sent Steve flying, catching her by the shoulder so that she fell about ten feet backwards into a pile of browned, dry leaves.

 

“Fuck---fuck,” Darcy whispered, turning over and crawling towards Steve to check on him.  She reached out with invisible hands and let one land on the cut on his brow. “Captain Rogers?  Are you---Steve, are you alright?”

 

Wanda screamed and split her focus between Thanos and Vision.  Darcy looked up and couldn’t help but be impressed with the strength and power that the young woman exuded, battling that beast of a grape ape and destroying the thing that powered her boyfriend at the same time.  

 

“Miss---Miss Lewis?” Steve gasped, looking around.

 

“Hey, hey---you’re alive, stay still,” Darcy recommended.  

 

His blue eyes darted around frantically and he reached out to touch her, not seeing her at all in front of him.  

 

“Where’s a’orange glow?” he asked, slurring his words together, clearly having had his clock cleaned by Thatnose.  

 

“It’s going to be alright---just---just wait,” Darcy whispered.  She hoped that it would be alright. She didn’t even know if they would have to resort to using the device and her and Jane’s backup plan going into effect.  

 

Wanda had done it.  She’d destroyed the mind stone.

 

“Where---you?” Steve whispered, trying to get up and looking perplexed when he felt an invisible hand grip at his shoulder, keeping him in place with a gentle, soft touch. 

 

“I’m here,” Darcy promised.  “It’s going to be okay---we---no.  Shit. He’s reversing time. Shit on a stick, that dumb lilac tinted, Liberace wannabe motherfucker.”

 

The gauntlet was completed and the power unleashed from it shook the earth around them, causing Steve to look around with wild, desperate eyes, his hand grasping and managing to hold onto her invisible wrist.  He seemed to calm a little at feeling something real at his fingertips. His thumb gently rubbed a small circle on her skin.

 

“If this is the end---” Steve whispered.  “I---should have. I mean---you’re bea----”

 

Thor’s dramatic entrance had Darcy gasping and standing to her feet, wrenching her wrist from Steve’s grasp and making to step forward as Thor stuck the ax straight into Thanos’ midsection.  

 

“Shit, the hand, you should have gone for the hand,” Darcy hissed, watching as Thanos brought the gauntlet up.  She fell back down on her knees and threw herself over Steve, hoping to provide the injured man some kind of cover.

 

And then Thanos snapped his fingers.  
  


* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOoooooooooooooooooooooo. that's a cliffhanger. Woops. BUT. BUT. next chapter we will begin to fix things. so that's good. And also, Steve and Darcy are in the same place right now. Sort of. 
> 
> There are some mysteries here that are being hidden from you, fantastic readers, until the time is right. Buckle in and thank you so much for reading!!!!


	6. Oh God...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm a little off schedule tonight. Happy Monday!
> 
> Warnings for: so much plot and dialogue, as always. The aftermath of the snap so there are feels here. Oh, and Darcy punching someone in the throat that could squish her, technically.
> 
> Thanks to the amazing and awesome word witch beta, queenspuppet/ragwitch. she is far far far far and away too good for me.

**Chapter Six: Oh God**

* * *

 

**_New York City_ **

 

"What happened?" Wong questioned.

 

The Asgardian refugees, Korg, Jane and the Sanctum sorcerers were watching the three portal doors and had been since Darcy had gone through the doors into Wakanda.  They couldn't  _ see  _ Darcy, Wong's magic had been so thorough that even  _ he  _ couldn't see her physical form, but he could see the slightest trace of magic that she left behind, like an echo of where she had been.  

 

He'd announced that she'd managed to drop the speck of dust that doubled as an incredibly complex machine right onto the Soul Stone before he had gasped as she was flung to the side with Steve Rogers.  

 

It was Jane's turn to gasp when Thor showed up, depositing his awesome ax right into Thanos.  Sif and Valkyrie both had hissed out, immediately muttering about proper kill shots and their critiques had been wise.  

 

Thanos snapped his fingers and a flash of light had all of the onlookers closing their eyes to guard against the intensity of the blast.  It felt like a lifetime, but when Jane finally blinked her eyes open once more, the gauntlet on the husky lavender douchemonger was complete and utter toast, with almost all of the infinity stones looking worse for the wear.

 

The soul stone especially looked---less clear, as if it were beginning to become opaque or filled with something.

 

"It worked," Jane whispered.  "It  _ worked _ ."

 

"It ruined that asshole's fancy glove, and really, that's enough for me," Korg nodded.  He looked down at the list that his new King Tiny Darcy had left for him, they had made their important calls, now he had to go to some god forsaken planet and find a green body or something.  He knew exciting things were about to happen, but he hoped to make sure he completed all the things on the list that Tiny had left him, just to impress his future King.

 

The craggy blue warrior looked down to Miek, the friend who had stuck with him through thick and thin and gladiator battles and revolutions, intent on bringing him with, when the pinkish hue of Miek's forehead went brown and began to disintegrate before his very eyes.

 

"Miek, you feeling alright there, friend?" Korg wondered.  "Eh, looks like it might have worked, Queen Science Lady. I hope--"

 

Jane took two steps away from the window watching intently as Miek disintegrated into dust.  She turned and ran headfirst into Valkyrie, who handed her the scrolls that Jane had been making notes on.  

 

"I told you not to use the ancient rules for your scribbles, Foster!" Wong scolded, well practiced already after less than twelve hours in the company of the mad genius Jane Foster.  

 

"It's---okay, I think," Jane whispered, looking over the notes.  She looked up at Valkyrie and winced as the warrior goddess began to go discolored, staggering a bit at the feeling.  "Oh boy. This is going to be madness."

 

"S'why we called Tiny's people," Korg mumbled, looking down at the ash in his hands that used to be his best mate, Miek.  

 

"This is---shit," Valkyrie mumbled, looking around in anger.  "All my soul mates are dead---how the fuck does that work ou---"

 

She elegantly turned into a pile of dust on the hardwood floor of the Sanctum, and she wasn't the only one.  Half of the remaining Asgardians quickly succumbed to the combined efforts of one Mad Titan and the meddling of Jane and Darcy.  There were hurried whispers of goodbyes from all, hopeful small words saying that they would see each other soon by the grace of their Queen.

 

"My Jane," Sif whispered, walking closer to the lady in question.  She reached out a hand and placed it against Jane's cheek, which was turning brown.  "It should have been Thor---"

 

"That wouldn't work at all," Jane mumbled, looking at her notes.  "The deal Darcy made with the stone was that soulmates would be separated, half to live in this realm and half to go to the soul stone until we can find a way to kill Thanos once and for all."

 

"Exactly, and Thor should have gone to the soul realm," Sif muttered miserably.  

 

"But he's not my only soulmate," Jane leaned into Sif's touch, even as she crumbled to ash.  "The two of you need to play nice and help Darcy. Okay?"

 

"Anything for my brilliant Queen," Sif promised.  

 

"I love---"

 

She was gone, and all that remained was the brown ash on the floor.  

 

"Well shit," Sif cursed, clearly having picked up some word choices from Jane and Darcy. She looked up at the remaining people, those that had not been sucked into the soul stone via the nanite device that Jane had created.  Sif didn't know what deal Darcy had made with the sentient Infinity stone, but it had obviously held up its end of the bargain. Soul bonds were cleaved in half, across the entire universe. Wong and Korg were the only ones left that had worked with Jane and Darcy in the last few hours, "What now?"

 

* * *

 

 

**_Wakanda_ **

 

"Oh God," Steve whispered, looking around the Wakandan jungle, blue eyes wild with despair.  He had just watched as Bucky turned to ash before his eyes. Wanda too. He heard Okoye's shouts and Rhodey's worried calls for Sam and he intrinsically knew that T'Challa and Sam were also gone.

  
  


Darcy had been there, hadn't she?  He had heard her voice and felt her solid and real, though invisible.  He looked around and couldn't find her. Perhaps she had succumbed to Thanos' wish as well.  Everything was gone. Bucky...Sam...T'Challa...even Darcy Lewis. Everything was absolutely fucked.  

 

Steve felt the tears start to spill and he didn't have the energy to stop it as the remaining people began to converge on Vision's husk of a body, ash heavy in the air.  He spared one glance to see that at least some of his friends were okay, but the price paid to Thanos had been heavy and Steve couldn't emotionally compute it.

 

So he sat there, tears falling down his cheeks, his chest heaving with the effort of every breath.  Suddenly there was a large person crouching in front of him, saying something very loudly. 

 

Barking.

 

"Rogers!" M'Baku shouted.  He made his traditional barking sound that always made Steve flinch, but got no response as Steve silently sobbed on the ground.  The Jabari leader looked back to the rest of the so-called Avengers, and found that they too were shell-shocked. 

 

M'Baku had watched half of his countrymen disappear, he could understand shell-shocked.  Okoye stumbled into the clearing and from the wild look of mourning painting her features, he could imagine that the worst had happened and T'Challa had fallen victim as well.  It was too much, but they needed to regroup and try to understand what had happened, to either reverse such witchcraft or prevent it from occurring again. 

 

"Nomad!" M'Baku roared out, using the name Shuri used when communicating with the former Captain America.  He slapped Steve across the face with about half of his strength, and wrinkled his nose in concern when Steve simply sat there.  "What happened?"

 

"HEY!  DON'T HIT HIM, YOU FUCKING MORON!" came a feminine voice shouting at M'Baku.  "He's been through ENOUGH!" 

 

He looked around for the woman who insulted him and had tried to defend one of Earth's greatest defenders.  He felt a tight grip on his wrist, although the perpetrator remained invisible. Then he felt a very violent punch to his throat and was shoved onto his back to the jungle floor.  

 

"Darcy?" the Black Widow whispered, taking a step forward as her shock quickly wore off.  "Darcy Lewis?"

 

"Yeah," Darcy answered.  

 

The magic that allowed her to be invisible began to slowly fade away, and the pretty, small, but buxom woman began to fade into sight once more, looking pink in the cheeks and winded.  She glared down at M'Baku with all of her vitriol, gulping when the large and imposing warrior stood up to his full height. She would not be cowed though, and gave M'Baku the look that Darcy usually reserved for Sif when the Asgardian tried to make her eat something green.

 

"You ever try to hit him again, and I'll take that fancy fur stole you're wearing, Lady Spears-a-Lot and I'll choke your BALLS with it," Darcy promised.

 

To his credit, M'Baku smirked at her.  

 

"Darcy Lewis, huh," the large and imposing Wakandan nodded, looking around for his usual cohort and sighing when he realized that Bucky was gone.  And not just Bucky. 

 

M'Baku had seen Wanda fade from view as well.  It was what had him running for the clearing by Vision's gray, vibranium body.  

 

"Darcy?" Steve whispered.

 

It was all the warning that Darcy got before she found herself in the tightest and most complete embrace she had ever experienced in her twenty-eight years of life.  The material of her t-shirt became wet quickly, seeing as it was Steve Rogers' new handkerchief. His arms were like vibranium bands around her, pulling her into a full body embrace where their bodies were connected from knees to shoulders.  

 

"Uhm?" Darcy questioned as her feet dangled nearly a foot off of the ground.

 

"You're okay," Steve whispered, clinging to her with how hard he had wanted to cling to everyone else who had disappeared.

 

"S'okay, Cutie," Darcy assured him, wincing slightly.  She had promised herself she wouldn't call him by the secret pet name she had been referring to him as for the last near decade.  But he didn't seem to hear her as he whispered nonsensical nothings about his missing friends and how she had been invisible. She managed to turn her head to look at Natasha Romanoff, whose voice she quickly placed, "Madam Mystery?  Care to help a girl out, here?"

 

"I---I don't want to," Natasha admitted, looking distraught.  

 

"Oookay," Darcy answered back.  Steve pulled her even tighter, causing her airways to be more severely constricted.  She winced and felt her field of vision go a little orange when she blinked. "NO---no, not yet.  Hold on."

 

Steve may have been in a grief filled stupor, but he immediately placed Darcy back on her feet and untangled his arms from around her, looking down at her in concern.  Darcy gave him a nervous smile, before turning around and looking at the assemblage of superheroes.

 

"Sweet Darcy, what did you do?" Thor questioned first, looking down at his singed ax.  

 

"Did you do this?" Okoye questioned, stepping forward and looking threatening.

 

Steve immediately put himself in front of Darcy defensively, his right hand going up to his face and wiping at tears as he took a large sniff.  Okoye narrowed her eyes at Steve, but clearly respected his opinion enough to not attack the girl that had appeared out of nowhere. 

 

"Your backup plan?" Thor questioned.  "What of Jane? Is she alright?"

 

"I made a deal," Darcy explained.  "Gamora---Thatnose's daughter, he sacrificed her in exchange for the soul stone. But here's the thing, the ghost an ancient sorcerer pulled me into the soul stone too and it turns out that infinity stones can be kind of fickle.  And lonely. So---I made a deal."

 

"Explain," Natasha demanded.

 

"Thanos wanted to eradicate half of all life in the universe," Darcy revealed.  "So I asked the Soul Stone if instead of killing all those lives, it would just---entertain them."

 

"Entertain---the souls?" Rhodey questioned.

 

"The bodies are gone, Miss Lewis," Bruce chimed in, looking down at the remaining arm on the Hulkbuster suit.  "Earth is currently four billion bodies lighter than it was a few minutes ago."

 

"Right, well, the nanite transistor with the shrink-a-dink science from Hank Pym did that," Darcy admitted.  "Just sort of, hijacked the power of the gauntlet with a magic spell and poof, a bajillion people are in that stone now."

  
  


"They're alive?" Steve questioned.  When Darcy turned to him and smiled, giving him a nod, he had the best moment of sweet relief that he'd ever had.  "Thank God. How do we---"

 

"How did you do the long range shrinking?" Banner questioned.

 

"How did you decide on who to send?" Okoye demanded.

 

The questions came out fast and quick and unrelenting from all the superheroes.  Finally the small raccoon put his paw in his mouth before letting out a shrieking, ear piercing whistle.  

 

"SHUT YOUR TRAPS!" the raccoon ordered, looking astonished when his order was listened to.  "Damn, didn't think that would work."

 

"Thank you, Rabbit," Thor nodded.  "Darcy, I am curious as to how we are here and others are not."

 

"It was Gamora's idea," Darcy explained.  "The Soul Stone seemed to agree. It was easier than making it random."

 

"Explain," Thor gently requested.

 

"Everyone has a soul mate.  A love of their life. Or a best friend.  The other half to their soul, platonic, romantic, whichever," Darcy whispered, looking down at her hands, wondering if they didn't look a little orange.  She looked back up and saw each of the superheroes looking contemplative. "The soul stone split them. One half of the soul pair in the stone. The other out here."

 

"How do we get them back out?" M'Baku spoke up.

 

"I ask the Soul Stone to complete the deal," Darcy answered.  "But before we do that, I think it would be, you know, smart and whatnot to kind of---get the gauntlet off of Thanos and destroy him."

 

"Sounds about right," the raccoon nodded, reaching for the gun that Bucky had left behind, picking it up.  Natasha stepped forward to say something, but the raccoon paid her no mind, looking over the gun carefully.  "I'd have preferred he left the arm, but I'll get that later. Alright, let's mount up, humans. We got a Titan to destroy."

 

* * *

 

**_Space_ **

 

_ "It's enough.  End this now." _

 

_ "You don't know that, gatekeeper.  Silence." _

 

_ "Loki...I do know this.  Half of the souls in the universe just disappeared." _

 

The incredibly cramped space pod suddenly materialized, on it were the other half of the Asgardian people as well as Heimdall and Loki.  

 

"What magic is this?" Heimdall demanded, looking around in astonishment.  When they had loaded the space pod, it had been far more full. Very nearly half of the people were gone, with ashes littering the ground.  His orange eyes narrowed at Loki, who looked weak from the lengthy, powerful illusion he had just ended. "What have you done, Loki?"

 

"Saved you, for one," Loki spat out irritably.  He sighed and leaned against the nearest flat surface, namely the back of one of the Asgardians who had been spirited away.  

 

It had been a complicated bit of magic and illusion.  For one, he had had to cloak the escaping space pod. The other bit had been making Thanos see the remaining Asgardians on the ship.  The last bit of illusion had been throwing the illusion of Heimdall up before Thanos' murdered him. 

 

"I told that enormous idiot that he would never be a God.  Luckily, I AM a God. Imagine being able to kill me so easily, the buffoon," Loki huffed out, looking delighted with himself for managing to so thoroughly trick the Mad Titan.  "Now, what's this nonsense about half of the souls being gone?"

 

"I don't understand," Heimdall shook his head in confusion.  "Thanos has retreated to the far edge of the Universe."

 

"Well, Thor is still alive, though, isn't he?" Loki demanded, his anxiety in that question showing.  

 

"Aye, he is," Heimdall nodded.  "Banner too."

 

"And Valkyrie as well, I'm sure," Loki added, trying for nonchalance and failing miserably.

 

"We should go to Midgard," Heimdall answered.

 

"Wait, but Brunehilde is---"

 

His question wasn't answered, because Heimdall closed his eyes and funneled a dangerous amount of dark power through him to create a portal large enough to take them to Midgard and soon the only thing any of them could see was the lights of the Bifrost.

 

When they receded, the bruised and battered space pod seemed to give up the ghost entirely as it landed on Midgardian ground.  The escape hatch opened and Loki rushed to it, peeking his head out to see where they'd landed. 

 

"What in the hell? Loki?" came the response from someone who resembled the Black Widow, except for the hideous hair.  The man in the robot suit next to her wasted no time in bringing up his mechanized arms and letting a blast out, aimed right at Loki's head.

 

"Wait!" Thor roared, jumping in front of the blast and deflecting it with his new ax.  He turned to look down at Loki's head barely visible through the hatch pod. "Brother?"

 

"Hello, dear Thor," Loki answered back, sounding honest at his term of endearment.  "What did I miss?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just this once...Nobody dies! EVERYONE LIVES! Almost everyone lives. I mean, come on, Loki is an actual facts God and Thanos is a wannabe. I believe with my whole heart that Loki is powerful enough to deceive Thanos, especially since he didn't have the reality stone or mind stone at the time. So take that canon!
> 
> Okay, I'm sure you have questions. Some of them can't be answered. This plot is seriously like---the worst, but I like plots that make me bang my head against hard surfaces, so there's that.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone!


	7. Sleep Deprivation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday, everyone! 
> 
> so, warnings for this chapter: too many characters. too much dialogue. and too much hidden plot points. Also, an Asgardian pissing contest. 
> 
> Thanks to the beta babe, queenspuppet/ragwitch she is the mac to my cheese. She is the word witch to my cauldron. she rainbow to my barf.

**Chapter Seven: Sleep Deprivation**

* * *

 

**_New York City_ **

  
  
  


The sound of trumpets, brash and blaring, ricocheted off of ancient artifacts, texts and display cases indiscriminately.  The Sanctum was practically buzzing with the sound of a driving bass melody. It didn't help that certain people kept singing along.  The three doors that usually led to different spots on Earth were now permanently open. The channel was between Wakanda and the Sanctum and it had been inundated with activity for seven straight hours.

 

Wong had tried to sleep, knowing the benefit of rest when there was still so much left to be done, but found it difficult as a few 'people' decided that sleep was for the weak.  

 

The three currently working downstairs in the lobby turned war room were also singing along to the Best of Earth Wind and Fire.  Wong enjoyed music of all kinds, really. He definitely understood the appeal of Earth Wind and Fire. 

 

But the raccoon, the rock and the Darcy sang quite badly.

 

Wong almost regretted opening the doors to Wakanda seven hours ago, allowing Darcy back in, as well as Banner and the remaining Avengers.  They had been going back and forth between the two places freely. Shuri, the Princess of Wakanda had stomped inside and shouted something to Bruce Banner about Pym particles and then had cornered Wong himself with incessant and laser focused questioning of the nature of magic.  

 

She'd left with Steve Rogers carrying at least one hundred pounds of ancient texts regarding transportation for her and had waved at Wong before muttering a distracted "Bye, Felicia."

 

"Does the music have to be so loud?" Wong demanded as he arrived in what Darcy had dubbed 'Soul to Soul Central'.  

 

"Hey man, you don't like Midgard, Wind and Fires?" Korg questioned.  The usually cerulean color of the rocks compromising his body were slightly ashen, giving the alien an entirely exhausted appearance.  

 

"What's the matter with you?  Only some kinda bastard wouldn't like this music," Rocket demanded of Wong while he utilized some of Jane's fancier machines to build something new.  "Hey, Tiny, hand me the rebulizer."

 

Darcy didn't seem too fussed at being called Tiny by a small, woodland creature, and rummaged around on a tabletop of alien tools before holding up two of them and giving said woodland creature a questioning look.

 

"The right hand," Rocket sighed.  "Tiny, you're a better assistant than Quill managed to be in way less time."

 

"I aim to please, Meeko," Darcy handed him the tool before giving him a salute.  She turned and her smile was bright, but certainly tired as she faced Wong. "Okay, so, situation report, since you went on your nappy nap."

 

"Humans need rest, Lewis," Wong reminded her.

 

"Nappy nap," Darcy repeated herself.  "Madame Mystery came in and gave us an update on the happity-haps in Wakanda.  Queen Ramonda has assumed responsibility to the throne until T'Challa can return, and so far, she's kicked major ass.  She set an ultimatum that she won't work with Thunderbutt Ross at all, only Everett Ross, so Merkel and Trudeau were like, dude, walrus guy is out, let's work with the non-political tiny hobbit at reassuring the world that everything is going to hopefully be alright even though half of us disappeared and they were the half that you really, really loved---"

 

"I do love Miek, he was such a fun little guy," Korg sighed, packing up some weapons into one of Strange's bags that he'd liberated from the missing (obviously defeated since Thanos had the damned time stone) wizard’s room.  "Always had a sassy comeback, you know?"

 

"I know, Big Blue, I know," Darcy assured him.  "And I should have come up with something better, like, asked the Soul Stone to just take all the racists and murderers, but I don't think it would have made the deal with me then, because really, who wants to spend their time with racists and murderers? No, Meeko, you don't, hush."

 

Wong watched as Darcy gently pushed Rocket's hand down.  The girl was a whirlwind of desperate energy and, if the large amount of empty coffee cups and energy drink cans were any clue, highly caffeinated.

 

"Where did you get the drinks?" Wong wondered absently, knowing that Strange eschewed such things being in the kitchen of the Sanctum.

 

"Oh, uhm, Doctor Banner went on a supply run for us. Also I think, to make a private phone call," Darcy explained.

 

"To a girl, I bet," Rocket interjected.

 

"It's always a girl, or---a robot," Korg added.  "Sometimes a bit of slime stuck in a ---"

 

"No, Korg," Darcy shook her head quickly before turning around to see that Steve and Natasha had arrived through the door from Wakanda again.  Her cheeks turned crimson before she turned away from them to focus on Wong once more. "Anyway, so Thor and Loki and Sif are working on making sure that the rest of the Universe isn't blowing itself up over half of it disappearing.  Most of the Asgardians are now in Wakanda, helping to clean up. And Meeko knows where Tony is---"

 

"He knows where Tony is?" Natasha spoke up at that, seeing as Steve was just staring at the woman in wonder and silent amazement.  They had both managed to grab a shower and clean clothing that they stored on the quinjet, civilian clothes meant for them to blend in in most civilian areas, simple jeans and shirts and jackets.

 

"Well, I mean, he got the last bit of surveillance from one of the recording devices he put on Quack," Darcy nodded in agreement with herself, her eyes doing a quick dart up and down Steve's jean clad legs.

 

"Quill---but no, you know what, I'll allow it," Rocket nodded.  He prodded at what he was working on and explained, "So Quack is kind of an asshole, but he's family, so only I'm allowed to call him an asshole.  And sometimes, I lojack the bastard because he's hot headed and stupid. I got him on Titan last, and the last transmission off of his tracker had someone that Tiny here recognized as Stark."

 

"Stark's on Titan," Natasha's brows pushed together, the line between them deep at the moment.  "How in the hell are we going to get him home?"

 

"Might not need to," Rocket assured her.  "Cause one of my other trackers that's still on, shows that Nebula is there with him, and if anyone can flag down a ship and take it over by force, it's Nebula.  Hey, Rocks, she's blue too, maybe you'll get along."

 

"Uhm, so---okay, well, Korg and Meeko were just going to try and get to the last known whereabouts of Gamora," Darcy explained.  "Because he apparently has lojacked his entire team."

 

"Hey, you start to lose people to planet-slash-god dickwads and see if you don't start getting a little overprotective of your things," Rocket grumbled as he fiddled with his machine.  "I need an energy source."

 

"Batteries?" Wong wondered hopefully.

 

"If your batteries can power Tiny's doctor-queen's machine to open up a couple thousand light years from here, sure," Rocket nodded.

 

"I'll check with Shuri. Rogers, go to the Tower and fetch a few arc reactors.  Stark sold the Tower, but he and Pepper kept a few floors for offices and workshops," Natasha advised. She then looked at Darcy, who was fairly vibrating with the caffeine throbbing through her veins.  "Lewis, get some sleep."

 

"I---I can't," Darcy shook her head adamantly.  She looked conflicted and actually looked at Steve in an attempt to get him to somehow approve her desperate need to stay awake.  "I don't want to."

 

"Alright," Steve spoke finally.  His entire face lit up when she smiled at him gratefully before he swallowed and looked down at his shoes.  "If you need something to do, you could, uhm---"

 

"Sleep?" Wong interjected helpfully.

 

Steve looked from his shoes to Darcy, taking a deep breath before speaking, "I haven't been to Stark Tower in a few years, and I'm not sure what I'll find---" 

 

"Oh, well, I was only there once, but I wouldn't mind going again, they used to have this great coffee shop downstairs," Darcy interrupted.

 

"That'd be great, that'd be swell---perfect," Steve nodded eagerly.  "If you're good to go, I'm---we can go and do that now, if---"

 

"Oh, yeah, I mean, I don't need to change or anything, I mean, I don't have clothing to change into anyway, so it's just, it is what it is---"

 

"You look lovely---beautiful, I mean.  Fine?"

 

Korg and Rocket were watching the interaction between their new Queen and the tall, blushing mess of a man.  Their heads were swivelling back and forth as the pair of idiots spoke over each other, interrupting and babbling as they both began to move away from the work area and towards the front doors of the Sanctum, completely ignoring everyone else in the room they left behind.  Steve beamed as Darcy laughed riotously at a snarky little joke about hoping Tony's giant phallic tower didn't disappear in the soulmate trade.

 

"Are you sure she made a deal to split up soulmates?" Rocket demanded of Korg, Wong and Natasha.  "Cause not for nothing, but those two seem like two awkward, adorable peas in a pod."

 

"Yeah, they do," Natasha agreed, narrowing her eyes as Steve held the door open for Darcy, looking absolutely enchanted with the woman.  Natasha looked around, wondering who would be best to question, with Jane gone. She settled in on Korg, who had the good grace to look shifty.  "She did make some kind of deal, didn't she?"

 

"Oh, look at the time, gotta go and recover someone green," Korg waved slightly before reaching down and picking up a very suddenly indignant Rocket as if he were Miek.  "Come on then, Meeko, have a green lady to rescue."

 

* * *

 

  
  


**_Space, more specifically Arcturus IV_ **

  
  


"Now, be careful, Goddess of War, this particular warrior is small and has dark hair and you may be unable to stop yourself from seducing her away from whoever her current boyfriend or girlfriend is."

 

"Hmm, it wasn't so difficult for me the last time, seeing as the man in question had completely abandoned the beautiful woman who should have been made his Queen."

 

Loki's eyes darted back and forth between Thor and Sif as they continued to heatedly bicker.  Loki barely had enough time to be thoroughly hugged by Thor while Korg went over the melancholy list of mutual acquaintances that had turned to ash.

 

He was quite distraught to know that Brunehilde was now trapped in some stone. When he had questioned the plan though, Jane Foster's small chambermaid threatened to punch him in the throat and demanded that he do his part to help save half of the universe and put a stop to Thanos.  

 

He had thought when the tiny chambermaid to Jane Foster essentially ordered him to go and find the things they would need, that he was in for a very boring few days.  However, Thor's new rabbit friend seemed to know where to find what was on the domineering little chambermaid's wish list.

 

And so Thor’s new wood chisel weapon he had made with stardust and muscle sweat managed a portal and here they were.  Loki standing in between a bickering pair of Asgardians who had obviously not had a very amicable reunion. But the dischord was entertaining so far, and as long as the two brutes didn't start throwing punches at each other, Loki knew he was safe.

 

He would have rather taken a break for a little while, but Korg had been very insistent that they listen to what King Tiny Chambermaid told them.  So here he was, waiting for a lowly ship Captain to give them the time of day. His eyes widened with exaggerated innocence when he turned to Sif.

 

"Thor had led me to believe that HE broke up with Jane, so if he's complaining now, he has no cause to," Loki smiled that too slick smile and managed to bend just in time to dodge the swat Thor had aimed at his head.

 

"Oh, so you want to claim injury for my relations with dear Jane even after you've broken things off with her?" Sif scoffed at Thor.

 

"I didn't---it was never explicitly stated out loud, I was---" Thor stammered and huffed out an annoyed breath, taking a moment to glare at a delighted Loki.  "I was just---trying to save face."

 

"Huh, honesty," Loki shrugged. "I wouldn't have gone that route."

 

"Have you ever?" Sif snorted inelegantly.

 

"Rude," Loki's nose went wrinkled.

 

"But not UN-true," Thor shrugged.

 

"My untruths hardly seem to be the problem," Loki reminded them.  "The problem is that you are both in ridiculous, soulmate stained love with the same woman.  And, since mother never had a chance to change it, you are also still betrothed to one another in the eyes of the All fathers."

 

"I would rather throw myself at Thanos' mercy than marry such an idiot!" Sif hissed, unsheathing her sword.

 

"That could absolutely be arranged!" Thor promised her with some kind of exhausted, insane glee that was doubling as ire.

 

"Yes, it could, because SOMEONE didn't remember to go for the kill shot instead of the GLOAT shot!" Sif sneered, not even taking a step back when Thor brought Stormbreaker up more securely in his grip.

 

"Alright--alright, let's not start chopping off body parts," Loki placated.  His green gaze went downright wicked and he shrugged, "I mean, especially not body parts that dear Jane might enjoy."

 

"Brother!"

 

"Scoundrel!"

 

"Oh for fucks's sake," Loki muttered as both hot headed warriors turned on him instead of each other.  He held up both of his hands and went to open his mouth to try and placate the morons who Jane Foster had the misfortune to ensnare with her wiles when a throat cleared on the other side of the room.  "Ahh---our host, nice to meet you Captain Ogord---"

 

"Save it, Trickster," the small, but clearly powerful woman muttered, walking more fully into the room and staring very intensely with deeply dark brown eyes at the trio waiting to speak with her.  "Give me one good reason not to put out a signal to the Grandmaster now and have his---"

 

She gave the once over to Loki, smirking at the end.

 

"His  _ pets  _ which interest him brought back into his hold?" she finished.

 

"One good reason being that I'm Thor, rightful ruler of the Nine Realms and if you DON'T---"

 

"Stuff it," Sif hissed, smacking Thor upside the head before giving the amused space Captain a confident smile.  "We would be happy to trade Loki to you if it would help you to find a way to assist."

 

"I beg your pardon?!" Loki turned and glared at Sif with all the vinegar he could pour into his expression.  "Keep it up, and I'll do my damndest to make sure Jane Foster forgets your name!"

 

"As nice as it would be to be owed a favor by the Grandmaster, I would not take it," the Ravager captain assured them.  She smirked and shrugged, "His cologne is overpowering."

 

Loki shrugged his agreement and Sif took a step closer to the woman, "Captain---"

 

"Please, call me Aleta," she smiled.

 

"And so it begins," Thor rolled his eyes.

 

"Sorry?" Aleta asked, clearly confused by Thor's interruption.  

 

"Just be careful, she's a stealer of hearts," Thor mumbled like a spoiled child who had been scolded and sent to the corner.

 

"Could a heart be stolen if it was never fully owned?" Sif wondered.

 

Loki put up his hands when Thor opened his mouth to argue more intensely.  The adopted Asgardian looked at Aleta with a contrite smile, "Perhaps it might be best to just let the good Captain know what we need.  Perhaps you've noticed a few people missing from your ship?" 

 

"Thanos," Aleta muttered, her eyes flickering with a literal flame.  "His plan finally came to fruition. We have a proper funeral planned for tomorrow evening---"

 

"Not necessary," Loki countered.  "Thanos' plan didn't quite come to fruition.  And we need your help in making sure it doesn't."

 

Aleta looked confused for a brief second before looking at the impressive weapon that Odin's son wielded.  She turned to Loki with curiosity. 

 

"How did the Mad Titan's plan get thwarted?"

 

"A tiny chambermaid of the future Queen of Asgard---or perhaps the future mate of the Goddess of War," Loki looked between Sif and Thor, who in turn glared at each other.  Loki took it in stride, offering a charming smile to Aleta. "We aren't quite sure which yet, but the chambermaid made a deal in exchange for half of the universe’s souls to have safe harbor.."

  
  


Aleta gave Loki a very thorough once over before shrugging, "I can see why the Grandmaster looks for you so obsessively, Trickster.  Come along, we shall speak with what is left of my officers."

 

* * *

 

**_Elsewhere, specifically someplace orange_ **

  
  


"Uhm---Miek?" Jane whispered, looking down at the gelatinous pink blob that was floating serenely in the perfectly room temperature water that surrounded them.

 

The alien made a contented noise that Jane had no hope of translating.  She looked around and couldn't help but marvel and wonder at the space she had been transported to.  It was a lovely amber orange color as far as the eye could see. Jane felt slightly dizzy looking into the distance and not seeing a horizon.  It was endless and shapeless and it made her want to do complicated calculus and physics all at once. 

 

She tamped down on her inner nerd, which was no small feat, and glanced around.  Miek was at her feet, loving its life as far as she could tell. To her right, a form shimmered into view and it was the Valkyrie, looking annoyed and confused.  To her left, she saw a semi-familiar face begin to materialize into the limitless realm. Each bit of their body flittered into existence, like beautifully colored snow, falling quickly and perfectly to form an entire person.  In seconds, there was a young woman with copper colored hair, wearing a leather corset. 

 

"Are you alright?" Jane asked of the girl, who was silently weeping.  

 

Just like Miek and Valkyrie, the crying girl didn't react to Jane's question.  She looked around again and saw that many more Asgardian people had materialized around Valkyrie and more Midgardians had materialized around the crying girl.  Jane realized that she was the metaphorical bridge between Asgard and Midgard, and now she was physically the bridge between the two people that were now trapped inside the soul stone.

 

The limitless space expanded exponentially, and Jane watched as more beings, creatures that Sif and Thor had tried to describe to her over the years, appeared in clusters.  Alike species seemed to converge with one another. She looked back down to Miek, wondering what she had in common with the jelly baby.

 

"He's one of a kind."

 

Jane managed to turn and her eyes went wide at the sight of a small green child that Darcy had already vividly described to her.  She bent so she was crouching and managed a small, soft smile.

 

"Hello Gamora," Jane whispered.

 

"He has no people, so he's alone," Gamora gestured to Miek.  She turned to the group of humans that had appeared to Jane's left side.  She pointed out the long brown stick that had continuously introduced himself as a form of language back in New York City, who was not standing still as the others were, but instead was beginning to stagger.  Gamora grinned at the sight of the gangly, overgrown tree branch."He's one of a kind too."

 

"He is Groot," Jane nodded.

 

"I AM GROOT!" the tree shouted, the sound rippling across the previously calm water at Jane's feet.  

 

"It's alright, Groot," Gamora promised, holding out her hands to the tree as it stumbled towards them.  "I missed you. Did you behave for Thor?"

 

Jane smiled as the tiny child version of Gamora mother henned the confused and scared tree.   She looked around again and wondered why she was moving and others weren't, some of the small children began to twitch.  She saw two small children shaking their mother slightly, a pretty brunette that was standing next to Pepper, freaking Potts.

 

The King of Wakanda was in his kitty cat suit and he was walking slowly and looking around with tense wonder.  A man with gigantic metal wings began to move and staggered, bumping into the guy with a metal arm---the one that Darcy nonsensically would refer to as her alternate universe true love---Buddy?  Buffy?

 

“Pure souls work better here,” Gamora said quietly as those that could move moved towards where she and Jane were standing.  “Powerful and good and selfless---”

 

“You obviously haven’t met me,” Bucky muttered.  

 

“The soul stone knows what it’s doing,” Gamora assured him.  The wisdom of a grown woman being exhibited by a small, green adorable child was a little disconcerting.  She tilted her head to the right and surveyed Bucky as he looked around and tried to take stock of the situation.  “Whoever you’re looking for, you won’t find.”

 

“She’s right, the soul matches are split,” Jane revealed to the converging superheroes who were able to move freely now.  “So if you have a true love or a soul brother or whatever, they’re not here.”

 

Bucky sighed and nodded, looking disappointed.  Jane couldn’t help but feel like she kicked a puppy.  

 

“Darcy is on the other side, she’s working with the others on finding a way to reverse what Thanos did.  Then we’ll be able to go back,” Jane promised. “We just need to stay put and stay sane and we’ll go home.”

 

“Stay sane?” T’Challa repeated.

 

“There’s a chance we’re gonna go crazy?” Bucky asked, clearly worried.

  
“Or, in your case,  _ again _ ,” the one with the wings muttered, earning a roll of Barney’s eyes.  

 

“Maybe?” Jane shrugged.

 

“Probably,” Gamora corrected.  “It’s good that most of the souls are in stasis.  We don’t want the bad ones to have more to feed off of.”

 

“Wait a minute, King Tiny Darcy said something about creepy feelings, she didn’t say that something would  _ feed _ off of us,” Valkyrie interjected, going for her sword.

 

“I didn’t know.  They never had anything to feed off of before,” Gamora’s voice was a quiet, tiny thing to match the miniature body she was stuck in.  “Darcy didn’t know.”

 

King T’Challa sighed and looked around once more, suddenly concerned for the cluster of Wakandan people that were standing stock still, but showing small signs of life, as if they might move at any moment.

  
“Two things,” he held up his hand, cat claws included.  “One, how do we protect ourselves against whoever might  _ feed _ on us? And secondly, who in the world is Darcy?”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the captain referred above was in Guardians 2. I just really love Michelle Yeoh. 
> 
> Next up who is ready for some cuuuuuuuuuute Darcy and Steve?


	8. New Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday! Who wants a long chapter? Who wants EVEN MORE CHARACTERS? WHO WANTS TOO MUCH DIALOGUE??
> 
> I'm so glad that you do, because we have it here. Chapter warning for: a surprisingly sad moment involving animals (NO DEATHS OF ANIMALS NO DEATHS OF ANYONE BUT THANOS). 
> 
> Thanks to the beta babe, Ragwitch/queenspuppet. She is awesome and her hair is made of dreams and my little pony blood. I think it makes her immortal, too.

**Chapter Eight: New Friends**

 

* * *

  
  
**_Space_ **   
  
"Follow my lead."   
  


"Uhm,  _ what _ ?" Tony whispered, as the half robot, half blue alien woman-ish being marched forward up the ramp of the loading bay of the ship that had collected them about twenty minutes before Tony's oxygen ran out completely.   
  


It had just been the two of them left on Titan.  Nebula, who had arrived halfway into a fight, intent on killing her father.  She hadn't been the company Tony wanted, but apparently after having the kid turn to ash into his arms, it had been the company he needed.  He was physically pushed out of his tearful, comatose state by the robotic woman. His feelings were dismissed as a  _ 'waste of time, flesh bag _ ', and he was placed in front of the ship she had crash landed and given a set of very advanced tools to fix his ' _ surprisingly advanced mechanized exoskeleton _ '.   
  


Iron Man was used to being pushed around by women in his personal life.  Well, one particular woman, who he hoped against hope was alright after what Thanos had managed to do.  He tried to push those sad and melancholy fears out of his mind and focus on the orders that Nebula was barking at him tersely.   
  


Tony wondered what the tall, lithe, blue skinned woman would look like as a redhead.   
  


He'd repaired his suit well enough with the spare parts and they'd managed to get up into Titan's atmosphere while Nebula tried to remotely hijack the nearest ship.  It hadn't taken long and here they were, marching onto a ship that had the most ridiculous blood orange and white color scheme ever. Tony followed Nebula as she marched towards the front of the ship, getting distracted just once when he saw something resembling a strobe light.   
  


"Uhm---wait," Tony put up his finger, wondering if Nebula, the mostly silent, grieving, revenge-fueled assassin was really the best representative of them as hopeless hitchhikers.  Something a very specific shade of green caught his eye and he turned to see a little mask that closely resembled Bruce Banner's rage-filled alter ego stuck in the cushions of a little velvet and satin loveseat.     
  


"Give us your ship!" Nebula barked out, her hand reaching out and clutching the long, elegant neck of the tall, tanned man in fantastic glittery robes.     
  


"No?" the man whispered, cool as he pleased, despite the firm grip Nebula had on him.  "I like---I mean, I appreciate your grip. You know, if this were, ah, you know, a different time in the universe, we might be able to explore this further, perhaps exchange details, but as it is, we're in a spot of trouble."   
  


"Nebula, put the nice man down," Tony sighed.     
  


"Listen to your friend, he seems---seems reasonable," the man managed a smile despite Nebula's best efforts to choke him.  "You see, I'm not so easy to kill. One might have to enlist a Goddess of Death, and from what I hear, or see, she might be indisposed."   
  


Nebula hesitated for another moment, before seeing that the man would not be choked to death, so she slowly let him go, glaring at him intensely the whole time.  An elegantly manicured and glitter striped hand went to his throat and he gingerly pressed against the skin there.   
  


"Let's hope you haven't mussed my contouring there, it's not so easy to reapply," he patted his throat with his fingertips before cocking his head to the right and looking at Tony.  "You---you, are fascinating. I mean, I saw what you and your little group managed to do down there on Titan. Almost edged out Thanos, who we all know, is a bit of a power hungry mad man.  Good job. If I hadn't of been so rudely expelled from Sakar, I might offer you a gig."   
  


"Who are you?" Tony narrowed his eyes.   
  


"Oh, how rude of me, I should have introduced myself, but you see, I was being strangled by your mechanized traveling companion," a glitter striped, elegant hand was stretched out to Tony.  "Midgardians, shake hands, right---filthy habit, really. I'm the Grandmaster."   
  


Tony ignored the hand extended to him and narrowed his eyes at the Grandmaster, "And why would someone watch a bunch of people try to stop a madman and not, oh, I don't know, lend a hand?"   
  


"Because I'm above such things?" the Grandmaster grinned.  "I---I mean, yes, my bodyguard and long time travelling companion turned to dust as a result, and I'm pretty sure he killed my brother, but you know, the glitter treatment I had done is one of a kind, and I'm not going to be able to just---to get another one seeing as I was forcibly expelled from my planet by a revolution so---"   
  


"Nevermind, Smurfette?  Choke him all you want," Tony waved Nebula forward.   
  


"Wait---wait, I can help now," the Grandmaster assured them.     
  


"By showing off your ridiculous glitter treatment?" Nebula muttered.   
  


"Rude," the Grandmaster pointed out before turning back to Tony.  "I believe you might benefit from some special skills of mine."   
  


"Right now, the only skill I care about is going back to Earth," Tony insisted.   
  


"Well, it'll only take a few years to travel back this way, seeing as this is my backup party ship and usually only used for Sakar travel, and we don't exactly want it to split apart at the seams," the Grandmaster casually explained.  He got a spooked look on his face and held up a glittering finger. "Hold on one moment, if you please---oh shit."   
  


The rainbow lights of the bifrost bridge  overtook the small craft and all three inhabitants shielded their eyes as the light burned brighter, transporting them elsewhere.

 

* * *

 

**_New York City_ **

  
  
  


The subway was shut down and there wasn't a cab to be found on the streets.  And one of the after effects of half of the world disappearing, was that Uber and Lyft weren't exactly showing up on time anymore.  Steve had shyly suggested that they hoof it the two miles and change from Bleeker Street to Stark Tower and Darcy, in all of her infinite wisdom and over-caffeination had stated,

 

"Sure, but WHEN I get tired after the first quarter of a mile, your super soldier back is going to be getting one cardio-challenged passenger.  It's me. I'm the passenger."

 

Steve had seemed pleased as punch at that, grinning as if someone had just told him that all water fountains were full of melted strawberry daiquiris and newspapers were actually made out of candy now.  Darcy's puzzled look at his joy had him shrugging his shoulders.

 

"You---I, never," Steve stammered, the hint of a pink stain showing up high on his magnificent cheekbones.  "Never had the opportunity to do that before, is all. Looks like fun?"

  
  


Which is exactly why Darcy crawled up on Steve's back to get a piggy back ride before they even hit Washington Square Park.  Steve's hands were clasped around her thighs and he wondered if she could feel the flush of his skin where her arms were wrapped around his neck.

  
  


The streets were surprisingly empty for what had happened less than twenty-four hours ago.  Steve knew that it was because people were inside, glued to their televisions as the world's leaders tried to advocate for calm, and that it was only a matter of time before everyone's loved ones were returned to them.  There was as much transparency as possible in such a situation. Steve had been adamant that it was a requirement and that if the leaders of the free world didn't do it, then Steve would hijack every satellite in orbit (something Shuri had assured him that she could do, in her sleep no less) and tell the human race himself.

 

Steve didn't want anyone feeling the way he had upon seeing Bucky disappearing into the wind back in Wakanda.  The hopeless desperation had been more suffocating than his asthma had ever been. Finding out the truth, that Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster and friends had moved heaven, earth, and hell too in order to keep half the universe safe had been more than a relief to Steve.  He wanted to make sure everyone else that had watched their friends and family disappear got to have that feeling of relief too. 

 

And now, he thought of what Sam and Bucky would say when they returned and saw that he was not only talking to Darcy as bold as brass, but he was HOLDING her.  Sure, it was piggy back, but he could feel every square inch of her softness against him and he hadn't melted into a useless puddle. Yes, he wanted his friends safe, but honestly he couldn't wait to rub his progress with talking to Darcy in his best friends’ faces.  

 

"Oh no!" Darcy gasped, cringing against Steve.

 

"Are you alright?" Steve stopped dead in his lengthy, effortless stride.  He hoped she hadn't been offended at how his thumb had swiped ever so slightly up and down on the soft expanse of thigh he had in his grasp.  "What is it, Miss Lewis?"

 

"Dude, call me Darcy, or King Tiny.  I mean, my boobs are currently all kinds of smashed into your very tense back," Darcy reminded him, digging her chin into his very muscled and tense shoulder. "You need a massage."

 

"Never did that before either," Steve mumbled, unable to help the little upward pull at the corner of his mouth.  If she had hopped onto his back at his earlier admission, perhaps this time she would volunteer to...

 

"I'm sure Wong has some magic beads or something that'd do the trick," Darcy assured him.  "Put me down, Champ?"

 

"Alright," Steve whispered, bending and allowing Darcy to hop back onto the ground.  He followed her as she rushed to the left, going past the benches to where there was an enclosed green area.  He understood why she had been distressed and furrowed his brow, "The dog park."

 

There were three dogs at the gate, whining and barking for Darcy as she ran towards them.  They were by no means small dogs. One was a sleek brown and black german shepherd, another was a fluffy abomination that looked like some sort of huskie, and the last was a tall, elegantly coiffed black poodle.  

 

"Hi guys, hi!" Darcy approached with her hands up and a sympathetic smile on her face.  "Where you out for a walk and some playtime with their humans before they kind of, well, you know, disappeared?  I'm sorry about that, we should have gotten some kind of warning out, but there was no time and who would have believed me anyway? I mean, honestly?"

 

She shrugged as she worked at the dog gate while simultaneously reaching for leashes and leads.  

 

"Could you imagine me hacking into some government schlup's phone and being like 'hey, resident troll here, attache to the future Queen of Asgard, and BOY do I have some bad news---Oh, he hung up on me'," Darcy patted and pet as much of the three excited dogs as she could before Steve reached out and grabbed for the leashes, placing his free hand on her shoulder.

 

He smiled down at her warmly as they began to walk away from the dog park that the fluffy poof babies (Darcy’s words) had been captive in for many hours at that point.  They automatically began walking in the same direction, back on path to Stark Tower. Steve stared down at Darcy as if she were some important riddle, a line developing between his eyebrows as he puzzled her out.

 

"A face like that doesn't deserve wrinkles, Champ," Darcy told him, an easy going smile lighting up her face when Steve's eyebrow wrinkle intensified.  "What?"

 

"I think you're amazing," Steve blurted out, then took a deep breath and smiled as they continued to walk the dogs down Fifth Avenue.  

 

"And they said you were supposed to be smart," Darcy joked, patting Steve's shoulder and pointing out a grocery store.  "Let's go get these guys fed."

 

* * *

 

**_Wakanda_ **

 

“Princess Shuri, we need you to---”

 

“There is a strange read-out coming from San Francisco indicating that the---”

 

“The Border tribe is without leadership and if we do not---”

 

“ **ENOUGH!** ”  Shuri shouted, and it did nothing but make the half dozen people who had bombarded her after she got out of her lab take a moment’s pause to stare at her in bewilderment before opening their mouths to start spouting questions at her again.  

 

Her brother’s advisor’s meant well.  They wanted to do what was best for Wakanda in the King’s absence.  The Queen Mother had been handling the immediate after effects of Thanos’ attempt at eradicating half of all life in the Galaxy.  However, she had been gone for the last six hours with Okoye, meeting with the world’s leaders in France to coordinate a global response to the attack.  In Queen Ramonda’s absence, it seemed that the advisors looked to the youngest of the Royal family for guidance and approval. 

 

Shuri wanted absolutely none of that.  She was too busy working with Heimdall and Doctor Erik Selvig to create another bifrost bridge, as well as going over Doctor Jane Foster’s notes to create another miniature device to bring the souls back from the stone, as well as reverse engineering the alien technology that had been used to invade Wakanda, as well as working to get the country’s shields back up and running, as well as doing all that she could to take what she had managed to download from Vision’s consciousness and integrate it back into a computing system so at the very least they could have another high powered brain working for them.

 

She didn’t have time for the administrative and advisory work that her brother seemed to thrive on.  She barely had time to eat and sleep as it was. So she did the only thing she could think of to dispel the sudden verbal onslaught of government officials.

 

She began barking at them as if she were M’Baku, with as much extra spittle and as close as to their faces as she could manage.

 

“Really, Princess?” 

 

“Oh thank Bast,” Shuri sighed, completely deflating as Nakia strode down the hallway towards her.  “Please, I beg you, Nakia, please take care of these nuisances for me, and I promise that T’Challa will owe you all the hand holding you could want.”

 

“Hand holding?” Nakia smirked at her boyfriend’s younger sister.  “Is that all we do?”

 

“Anything else would be a royal scandal,” Shuri came back quick.  Her face grimaced in disgust and she shivered, “And also would be disgusting to think about my brother doing.”

 

“He is a grown man,” Nakia’s little, secretive smile had Shuri miming gags and violent sickness.  “Alright, alright, enough with you.”

 

The world class spy placed herself between Shuri and the advisors that had needed attention so badly.  She gave them a stern look and scolded, “Can’t you see that your princess is nearly dead on her feet. She will do Wakanda and the world no good as she is.  Give me fifteen minutes and I will handle all of your concerns.”

 

Nakia took Shuri’s elbow and guided the young woman away, heading straight for the little space that the Wakandan princess secretly used as her living quarters since she was thirteen and been allowed to work in the labs.  It was a space just big enough for a hammock and a little pantry full of the most sugary snack foods that Shuri could get her hands on. Nakia reached into her own jacket pocket and pulled out a small bag of brightly colored jelly candies, holding them out of Shuri’s reach when the teenager went to snatch them.

 

“You will eat a balanced meal before you consume all of the sugar,” Nakia advised.

 

“Ugh, you are so BORING when you are dating my brother,” Shuri fairly whined as Nakia pushed her towards the hammock.  

 

“Your mother will be returning within the next day,” Nakia revealed.  “I would prefer to have you in one piece until then.”

 

“You don’t have to suck up to my mother, she already loves you,” Shuri reminded the woman who had been her unofficial babysitter a decade ago.  “She probably loves you a fraction more than she loves T’Challa.”

 

Nakia hummed in amused agreement, pressing on Shuri’s shoulder to get her to lay back in the hammock.  The older woman grabbed a blanket, something soft and new and stared down at it curiously, “This is Jabari?”

 

“M’Baku gifted it to me when I provided him with video of T’Challa testing out his quick socks,” Shuri revealed.  She chuckled to herself sleepily as she reminisced, “He went so fast and so hard that he busted through the window and fell two stories to the upper level of the mines.”

 

“Did you  _ tell _ him you were testing quick socks?” Nakia asked knowingly, tucking the soft fur blanket around the princess.

 

“Of course not, where is the fun in that?” Shuri snorted.  Her snort seemed to end in a snore and all was quiet for a few moments.  She jolted awake very suddenly and looked around with wide eyes, “Doctor Foster’s notes, there was some sort of food and I think I read a six instead of a five---”

 

“It will be fine,” Nakia soothed quietly, reaching out and brush a long braid that threatened to spill over Shuri’s forehead.

 

“There is just too much to worry about, where is M’Baku again?” Shuri murmured quietly.  

 

“Ms. Romanoff had some need of him,” Nakia assured her.  

 

“Hmmm, good,” Shuri nodded.  “And Captain Rogers?”

 

“Ms. Romanoff seemed to imply that he was spending time with a young lady,” Nakia smirked.  Natasha had actually wanted her to pass on the message to Shuri. “It seems that Darcy Lewis has taken him for a walk around New York City, quite romantic at this time of year.”

 

“What?!” Shuri exclaimed and popped out of her hammock, utilizing some physical skill to evade Nakia’s attempts to put her back to bed.  The young princess ran to the door and shook off Nakia’s well meaning hand.

 

“You must  _ sleep _ !” Nakia reminded her.  

 

“I  _ must _ get footage from New York City, or both M’Baku and the White Wolf would never forgive me!”

 

* * *

 

**_New York City_ **

 

Once the dogs were fed, Steve and Darcy began walking with the three dogs to Stark Tower.  The owners of the german shepherd and the black poodle had run into them on the street, where they had been wandering with tear stained faces and worry permanently etched into their expressions.  Steve and Darcy both had sprung into action when the dogs had nearly tackled their respective owners.

 

“Ma’am, it’s going to be alright, I promise,” Steve said earnestly to the middle aged woman who was missing her husband who had gone out to walk the poodle before being turned into dust at the park.  “We have the brightest minds in the planet working hard to bring everyone back unharmed.”

 

“Yeah, we are kicking so much ass at that,” Darcy assured the woman.  “I mean, you know Princess Shuri? Of Wakanda? The one who introduced nanite technology to the world?  Well, she’s on the case, and she’s freaking brilliant, so don’t worry, just, spend some time with your doggo, and spend the next day or two just---you know, doing whatever your husband hates but you secretly love.”

 

“Binge watch Teen Wolf?” the woman sniffed, a small, sad smile pulling at her lips.

 

“That sounds like an excellent way to pass the time,” Steve nodded, although he clearly had no idea what Teen Wolf was.  He looked down at the remaining dog, tan haired with a dark curling tail and looking far too big to be a city dog. “You don’t happen to know who this guy belongs to, do you?”

 

“Oh, that’s the Akita from down the block, his name is Munchkin,” the woman revealed.

 

“Not even a little bit correct,” Steve muttered, the same time as Darcy snorted in disbelief.   _ Munchkin _ was taller than Darcy when he stood on his hind legs and Steve had been seriously concerned for her when the dog had jumped on her to be fed after the grocery store.  He turned his head to Darcy and gave her a little wink. 

 

“His owner is a nice young man down the street, his wife is deployed right now,” she explained.  “I would take Munchkin, but I don’t really have the room.”

 

“No worries,” Darcy waved her off as Steve eagerly nodded his agreement.  “Here, let me give you a number to call, and when one of Munchkin’s parents are back, have them call it.”

 

Steve patted the large Akita on his furry head as Darcy scribbled a number down.  He quickly memorized it before Darcy handed it off. They waved off the calmer woman and kept walking with Munchkin happily trotting ahead of them.  

 

“Was that your---uhm, your number?” Steve asked hopefully.

 

“Oh, no, that’s Sif’s number,” Darcy explained.  “Calling my number wouldn’t do anyone any good when this is all over.”

 

“Why?” Steve stopped walking, grabbing for her hand to stop her as well before staring down at Darcy in concern.

 

Darcy looked up and shrugged, “Why what?”

 

“What’s going to happen to you when this is all over?” Steve wondered, squeezing her hand that he held.

 

“What?  Oh, I mean, no, I---I,” Darcy stammered.  “I’ll be so---wasted when we’re done. I mean, pulling off something this good?  Well, that’ll mean reveling. Big time revels. And I plan to be drunk under a table in celebration.”

 

Steve looked confused and didn’t quite believe her.  Natasha had always joked with him that he was the worst liar she had ever met, but Steve kind of thought that Darcy was very well matched with him in the inability to tell a lie.  But then she was tugging on his hand, making him fall into step with her. He kind of lost his train of thought when she intertwined her fingers with his. 

 

She chattered on at high speed as they walked, speaking of the time that she had used the meager money she, Jane and Sif had left one evening in Australia and had conned several men to enter a drinking competition with the Asgardian warrior that had been their personal bodyguard for years.  

 

She was a crafty little thing, and Steve soon forgot his initial concern regarding her little white lie as she prompted him to tell his own story about ‘Beautiful Bucky and the Hottie Howling Commandos’.  

 

“And Howard was so damned drunk, he didn’t even notice that it was Bucky in a dress, serving him drinks, and keep in mind, Buck’s hair was short then, not the overgrown lion’s mane it is now.   _ And _ he had three days worth of stubble on his face, which you know, really made that victory red lipstick pop, when I think about it,” Steve smiled as Darcy laughed long and loud.

 

“And Stark kept tipping him?” Darcy demanded as they closed in on the building that used to bear the Stark name.  Steve took the lead, walking them away from the front of the building to get to the rear entrance. He handed Munchkin’s leash to Darcy before opening what appeared to be an electric meter on the side of the building.  

 

An electric meter on the back of Stark Tower, which was powered by an arc reactor.  Inside wasn’t an ordinary electric meter, but a fancy scanner that had Steve bending quickly so it could get a snapshot of his eye.  Darcy watched as concrete shifted noisily to the side, revealing elevator doors that slid open. 

 

“Awesome,” Darcy grinned, matching Steve.

 

“Don’t tell Stark, but I always thought that was really special,” Steve admitted.  He sighed and shrugged, “Or do tell him.  _ I’ll _ tell him.”

 

“Yeah,” Darcy nodded as Steve pressed the only button in the elevator, one that would presumably take them to the place that Tony and Pepper still kept in the Tower.  She reached for Steve’s hand once more and wove their fingers together again. She gave them a tight squeeze before saying softly, “You know, really big things like---half of the universe turning to dust and a giant lilac megalomaniac intent on mass genocide, well, they put things into perspective?”

 

“You don’t know---I lied to him, about what happened to his parents, to protect Bucky,” Steve revealed, not knowing how much Darcy knew about the situation.  The story had been plastered all over the headlines two years ago, and Darcy nodded in understanding of what he was talking about “And I wanted to protect Tony too.  He was in a good place, you know? Pepper and he were in a good place after the fall of SHIELD and after the Mandarin debacle. For a little while at least, but he was obsessed with protecting  _ everyone _ .  I didn’t want to pile more on top of him.  He was already paranoid and building so many suits that it was---well, it was selfish of me.  To try to keep it a secret.”

 

“It’s okay to be selfish,” Darcy assured him.  “I’m sure it doesn’t happen too often.”

 

“Says the girl who has spent her adult life protecting Jane Foster,” Steve murmured with a smile.

 

Darcy’s brows knitted together in a quizzical look and Steve had the good grace to look sheepish and stammer,

 

“I mean, it’s, Thor.  He has a big mouth when he’s had too much Asgardian meade and he was just---he told stories about you?” Steve lied, badly.

 

“Sure he did,” Darcy didn’t believe him, but she couldn’t question it as the elevator doors slid open to reveal Pepper Potts’ private office.  

 

The woman in question wasn’t there, and both Steve and Darcy figured that she had been a victim of the great soul purge.  But there was still a lot of activity in the office. There were holographic screens up all over the room. Some were showing surveillance, another was open to an email program, another half dozen were teleconference calls.  It looked to be a busy time for Pepper’s assistant.

 

Only the two people in the room didn’t look quite old enough to be an administrative assistant to one of the most powerful CEO’s in the country.  They didn’t even look old enough to vote. They looked like two teenagers, running around and manipulating the holographic screens as if they were playing a very easy video game.  The young woman was flicking through emails with a scowl on her face, her curly black hair barely restrained in a low ponytail. The young man was staring at a screen full of 1’s and 0’s, his mouth open and his eyes squinting as he perplexed over a problem intensely.  

 

“Are you rugrats supposed to be here?” Darcy questioned with authority, stepping forward, attempting to look menacing.  Luckily, Steve was half a step behind her, actually looking menacing and authoritative. 

 

“Oh.  Hey,” the girl casually waved.  “I’m Michelle. This is Ned. You’re the guy from our detention videos.  Thanks for telling me about puberty. Nice dog.”

 

“You’re welcome and thanks?” Steve furrowed his brow, his cheeks turning pink at the mention of the videos.

 

“Detention videos?” Darcy looked up at Steve with a smirk.

 

“And health and gym,” Michelle nodded.  “Real informative stuff about the hot lunch.”

 

“What?” Darcy grinned up at Steve expectantly.  

 

“I lost a bet with Stark eight years ago,” Steve muttered very quickly before turning back to the children and demanding, “What are you two doing here?”  

 

“Our friend Peter hopped on a spaceship with Mr. Stark a day ago?  And then the big purple guy came to Wakanda? And then half of everybody just vanished?  So---we thought we could try to find him through his tracker on his special---uhm,” Ned’s eyes slid to Michelle.

 

“I know he’s Spiderman, dude,” Michelle waved him off casually before going back to reading Pepper Potts’ email.  

 

“So, Peter’s Aunt turned to dust right in front of us, and that was awful and Peter should know and I know that Mr. Stark can track Peter, so I thought to come here, and we sort of---broke in?” Ned offered hopefully.  He looked immediately contrite and focused solely on Steve. “Please don’t send me to detention. That video of you makes me feel really, really bad. You just---you look so disappointed, kind of like how you look right now.”

 

Steve went to open his mouth, while Darcy still looked mainly delighted at the idea of Steve doing  _ detention _ videos.  A chiming alarm went off and the lights of the bifrost bridge shimmered brightly through the windows before a large clunking sound emanated from the top of the building.  

 

“Oh, hey, there’s the Iron Man signal.  Right above us,” Ned pointed to a screen.  His eyes went wide and he turned a panicked expression towards Michelle.  “Mr. Stark is back, come on, let’s go before he finds us.”

 

“Stop, you’re not in trouble,” Steve assured the children, who were halfway to the door.  “C’mon, let’s go and see Mr. Stark. Maybe your friend came back too.”

 

“Flash disappeared in the soul dust storm,” Michelle muttered.  “So I’m assuming that’s Peter’s soulmate, or whatever, so he’s probably alright if aliens didn’t squish him.”

 

“That’s just--- _ wrong _ ,” Ned shook his head at his friend.  “If anything,  _ I’m _ Peter’s soulmate.  Platonically, you know?”

 

“Let’s go,” Darcy put her hands on both of their shoulders and began frog marching them to the door.  “We’ll see if your friend is with Tony. But---on the way, you can tell me all about the videos that Steve starred in.  And really, how much would a girl have to pay to get a copy of the puberty one?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm sorry for not tagging all the characters. It would be ridiculous and take up an entire screen. And some of them are only getting little cameos anyway. 
> 
> Administrative note: please forgive me in advance, I will be unable to post a new chapter NEXT Monday. I'll see you in two weeks with more craziness. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the support!


	9. Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m very sorry about the unannounced hiatus on this story. Thank you for your patience and understanding!!
> 
> Also huge thanks to ragwitch/queenspuppet for being awesome and perfect and also beta ing
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: wildly irresponsible tase ring of gods and other things. Man hugs. And also far too many characters.

**Chapter Nine: Old Friends**

* * *

 

**_New York City, Stark Tower_ **

  
  


The short distance between Pepper Potts' office in Stark Tower and the landing pad that was equipped for Iron Man landings seemed much longer than it actually was, thanks to the tense silence that had bloomed.  The two high school children were unnaturally quiet, both finally panicking after over twenty four hours of nonstop activity and tense fear. And they were also more than slightly concerned that they had finally managed to find some lasting trouble at having broken into Stark Tower and taken over the operations for the missing Pepper Potts.

 

Ned had muttered to Michelle that Tony Stark was finally going to bust him for breaking into the first Spiderman suit last fall.  And then just a small part of Stark Industries. And the Avengers Facility security system. And, just the once, Buzzfeed. 

 

"I'm going to the ocean jail, I know it," Ned whispered.  "When Pete comes back, make sure you tell him that I was his platonic soulmate, okay?  And that it was awesome."

 

"You're not going to the raft, idiot," Michelle was hardly reassuring, her face completely devoid of anything remotely resembling empathy. Also, she had spent enough of her own private time in the last year doing slightly nefarious deeds with a computer. "They'd send you to the juvie version of the raft first."

 

"That's way worse," Ned's voice was high and reedy with panic.

 

"No one is going to the raft," Steve promised.

 

"And I highly doubt that there is a version of the raft that is JUVIE," Darcy added.

 

"Have you seen our government, lady?  They'd send teenagers to juvie raft," Michelle scoffed.

 

"I get sea sick!" Ned announced.  "I can't---"

 

"Son, you're fine, I won't let them take you anywhere, I promise," Steve said, strong and sure.

 

There was something to be said about a promise from Steven Grant Rogers.  Sure, he was no longer in his uniform, and he didn't have a shiny, patriotic shield in his arms, but he did have that innate goodness that had made him the perfect recipient for Erskine's serum.  Ned seemed to relax, and even Michelle lost some of her neutral chaotic energy as she clearly believed in Steve's promise. 

 

"Cool," she muttered.  She nudged Ned and said in whisper, "You still have that project that Principal Morita eighty-sixed and said that we were menaces to society for trying to make?"

 

"Ssssshhhhut it," Ned gave Michelle an indignant look.

 

"Just saying, seems we might be able to help," Michelle shrugged.  

 

"Youths," Darcy wrinkled her nose then reached for Steve's hand, squeezing it tight.  "You okay there, Champ?"

 

When he wasn't actively reassuring children that they weren't bound for jail, Steve looked a little pale and unsure.  He managed to give Darcy a small upward turn of his lips before looking distracted again. Darcy stopped moving entirely and turned Steve to face her, reaching up with her free hand and holding his chin tight.

 

"This is weird, I get it.  You haven't seen Tony since you guys broke up and went through the divorce---"

 

"Darcy, we didn't divorce," Steve let out a small huff of air that betrayed his amusement at her words.  His eyes shifted and he looked clearly worried, and Darcy didn't need to look up the reports to know that things did not end well between Tony and Steve (although she totally HAD looked it up).  He sighed and gave her a sad smile, "But yeah, it's strange and I'm worried."

 

"There's a much, much bigger picture here than a game of superhero tag in an airport, alright?" Darcy reminded him gently.  "This is half of the universe, Rogers. So no matter what kind of reaction Stark has, you're going to power through and get your best friends back.  And my best friend back. I know you can do this, alright? No matter what comes out of Stark's mouth, you can do it."

 

"Thanks," Steve whispered, shifting his face so that his head was laying against her hand.  "You've been amazing, sweetheart."

 

"Aww, I'm just here for the sidekicking," Darcy winked at him before she felt Steve's face move again under her hand, this time with some kind of telegraphed intent as his head moved closer to hers, tilting in a way that seemed like he was about to kiss her.  

 

She wanted to jump away and stop it from happening, but the funny thing about Steve Rogers in particular was that he seemed to be a sort of Darcy Lewis brand of kryptonite.  She was powerless to stop him and didn't really want to.

 

"Woah! That is totally an alien ship!" Ned called out as they opened the door to the landing pad.  

 

Steve reluctantly pulled away from Darcy and she turned her body away from him, her face flushing a bright pink as they stood side by side, looking out and seeing that Ned was right, it was absolutely an alien ship.

 

"Thanks kid, you wouldn't believe it, but this is one of my lesser party machines," a strangely coiffed and ornamented man fairly cooed at Ned as he slowly walked down the ramp of the ship.  He narrowed dark brown eyes at the high school boy and said, "You look like a friend of mine. Recently dust? Maybe a distant relative. Do you like punishing people?"

 

"Uhm---no?"

 

Steve sighed and gently displaced Ned so that he could stare down the glittery, tall being that was standing at the end of a ramp, looking around in wonder. 

 

"Where is Tony?" Steve demanded.

 

"Ohhh, you're a tough one, I could have used you, very strong willed, very clearly hard to kill," the man assessed. "Yes, yes, yes, with the right weapons, you might have taken down the Hulk."

 

"Grandmaster!" Thor shouted, jumping down from the top of the ship and approaching the man who had been sizing Steve up.

 

"Thor!  Baby, how have you been---you know, since you overthrew my planet?" the Grandmaster smiled.  He looked around Thor's massive shoulders and frowned, "Where is your darling and dastardly brother?"

 

"Busy," Thor grumbled.  "Where are Stark and the sister of Gamora?"

 

"On the ship, something about shyness and performance issues, don't ask me, I don't even work here," the Grandmaster chuckled, but got nothing in response.  He shrugged and muttered, "Tough crowd all over. Oohhh, I like the one with the glasses. Nice--ah, proportions."

 

"I'm going to tase this sleazebag, okay?" Darcy questioned to no one in particular as she clearly didn't wait one second for anyone to give her permission.  She unleashed the full voltage on the clearly alien douchebag and smiled when he fell to the ground twitching. She grinned up at Steve and then Thor, "And that's how you deal with aliens with banana hammocks for brains."

 

* * *

 

"Why are we waiting on the ship?  We've arrived on your home planet."

  
  
Nebula frowned at Tony as he paced a short three-foot distance repeatedly, his eyes darting around relentlessly, a million micro-expressions twitching at his mouth.  Trepidation, anxiety, anger, sadness, guilt. They all flittered over him and Nebula honestly didn't have the circuitry to categorize them all. She rolled her eyes and waited patiently at the ramp that the Grandmaster had already walked down moments ago.

  
  
"Are you malfunctioning?" Nebula demanded.

  
  
"Look, Robo-smurfette, human beings have feelings, we do not malfunction," Tony snapped.

  
  
"I'm trying to be nice to you!" Nebula screamed at him, going from zero to sixty in the anger meter instantly. 

  
  
"WHY?" Tony screamed right back.  "I'm an asshole! I got the kid turned to dust, God knows what happened to Bruce.  I lost an entire team of superheroes, people specifically designed to be honorable and just and good and I managed to chase them off.  And I couldn't even find the stones to call him for help when I needed it, because I'm that much of an asshole. So why be nice to me?"   


  
"Because you are an enemy of Thanos, and you helped my sister's idiot friends, and you are weak and fragile and there is no joy in hurting a weak and fragile thing," Nebula said very quickly, her anger dissipating at the end of her tirade.

  
  
Tony nodded and shrugged, "Well.  You're not wrong."   


  
"Your home planet, I assume you have spare parts to fix yourself," Nebula gestured with her head towards the ramp of the ship.   


  
Tony nodded and ran his hand over his face.  He pointed at Nebula's arm, which had certainly seen better days.  "I might have spare parts for that too."   


  
"And if you get off the ship, I might let you fix it," Nebula muttered.  "But in order to do that, you have to get off the ship."   


  
"Okay, alright, I mean, how hard can it be?  I go out there and he's all perfect and stalwart and true and oh, sweet baby Jesus in a hay cradle," Tony's eyes widened as he got a glimpse a tiny brunette standing in front of Steve.   
  
Darcy Lewis, in fact.   
  
Holding Steve's hand.

  
  
"What's a Jesus?" Nebula muttered.  

  
  
"He's touching her and not combusting, I feel---I feel somehow even more betrayed by that," Tony put a hand over his heart.  "Half of the fun was seeing how beet red he could turn around Lewis. Damn."

  
  
"Are we leaving the ship today, or are we staying here forever?" Nebula demanded.  "I doubt I can exact revenge on Thanos by staying here, so I would prefer to leave."

  
  
"Right, right, leave," Tony nodded.  He took a deep breath. "Suck it up, buttercup."   


  
"Suck what up?" Nebula wrinkled her nose in annoyance as Tony finally began walking down the ramp.  She shook her head in slight disgust and muttered, "Humans."   


* * *

  
  
"Little King Darcy, thank you," Thor grinned down at his old friend.  "You've revenged me. You're a true part of my team."   


  
"No problem big guy," Darcy saluted him.   
  


"Loki'll be very pleased to have him out cold, it's why he asked to be sent back to the sorcerer's house of rotten tricks rather than come with me to obtain Stark and the blue sibling of Gamora," Thor admitted.  "I'll summon Loki with Stormbreaker, he'll enjoy seeing the Grandmaster sprawled out with his ass in the air."   
  
"Kinky," Michelle muttered.

  
  
"Why do you have infants?" Thor looked to Steve.  "Are these your infants? How long have I been gone from Midgard?”

  
"They're not mi---"

  
  
Steve's retort died in his throat as Tony came walking down the ramp of the ship, sparing one second to smirk at the passed out and twitching Grandmaster.  But the smirk melted as he looked at Steve, the entire world fading away around them. Steve carefully let go of Darcy's hand, taking slow steps forward, with Tony doing the same.

  
  
"Oh shit, camera, where's my camera," Ned whispered, fumbling around for his phone.  "They're going to tear each other's faces off."

  
  
"What?" Thor demanded.  "Don't do that, your faces are nearly perfect for Midgardians."

  
They didn't tear each other's faces off.  They approached each other slowly and took a mutual half second pause before their arms went up and suddenly they were embracing, their bodies connecting from hip to neck as Steve lifted Tony up and off the ground an inch or three.  

  
  
"Stark, if you can breathe, make some sort of sound!" Darcy ordered.

  
  
Tony squeaked as Steve continued to try to hug the breath out of him.  Tony was trying to give as good as he got, but Steve had super muscles and Tony only had a crunchy, crumbling, dirty suit on.     


  
"Sorry," Steve whispered.   
  
"Hey, no, I'm sorry," Tony whispered back.   


  
"They're both sorry," Thor announced to the rest of the people who had been unable to hear the whispers.

  
  
"I should have come to you, I should have been the one to tell you," Steve insisted.

  
  
"I flew off the handle, and I shouldn't have tried to kill Barnes," Tony talked over Steve.  "I should have reached out a long time ago so we could have fixed it. I'm sorry, Cap."

  
  
"I'm sorry," Steve answered back.

  
  
"What is going on?" Thor grumbled.  "More things happen on Midgard when I'm not here, I swear.  It's very annoying. I hate having to play catch up."

  
  
"We'll be sure to try to live our lives on pause when you're off being heroic in outer space," Darcy rolled her eyes.     


  
"Do we have a plan?" Tony sniffed as he and Steve finally stopped embracing.  Steve wiped at his eyes. "We have a plan right? Because---I watched the kid turn to dust, Rogers---"

  
  
Tony put his hand to his mouth as his eyes filled with tears.

  
  
"Oh, no, it's totally cool," Ned offered eagerly.  "Pete's my soulmate. That's why---"

  
  
"You THINK he's your soulmate," Michelle argued.

  
  
"I KNOW it, that's why he's my soulmate, I  _ get _ him," Ned insisted.  

  
  
"I swear, I adopt one latchkey kid and now my roof is swarming with them," Tony blinked away his tears again and looked around to familiar and not so familiar faces for answers.  "What's going on?"   


  
"Little King Darcy made a deal with the soul stone before Thanos snapped his fingers, and my beautiful Jane made a device in less time than it takes for this one to put on his jewelry," Thor nudged the electrified Grandmaster with his toe none too gently.  "Every soul has a matching pair, like the earrings he's wearing."

  
  
The Grandmaster moaned as Thor 'nudged' him once more.

  
  
"Yeah, and now the matching sock to your soul is lost in the wash," Michele spoke up.  "Except now, you guys are all---pals again, so you should be able to be that as seen on tv shit and grab the pairs back."

  
  
"Also, destroy Thanos," Nebula agreed.  She nodded at Michelle as if she were a fellow warrior, then turned to face Darcy.  "You are the King here, I will work for you if you allow me to kill Thanos."

  
  
"I magnanimously give you permission to kill the ever loving crap out of him," Darcy gave the blue lady two thumbs up and a big smile.   


  
Nebula slowly brought up her hands and mimicked Darcy's gestures, including baring her teeth, despite the fact that it looked like it pained her.  Tony closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  
  
"Is Pepper---"   
  
"She's in the soul gem, with everyone else," Steve nodded.     


  
"And---who did you…” Tony paused and turned to look at Darcy with narrowed eyes.  

  
  
"Bucky," Steve answered.

  
  
"Huh," Tony stared at Darcy as she suddenly became overly interested in the taser in her hands.  

  
  
"I feel we should go back to the Wizard's house of tricks," Thor announced, bending slightly and grabbing the Grandmaster by the back of his ridiculous robes.  He lifted him effortlessly, letting his limbs dangle with the occasional twitch. "Loki isn't very fond of that place, since Tony's wizard cousin made him fall through dimensions."

  
  
"Seems fair," Tony shrugged.

  
  
"Wait---you sent him to the Sanctum?" Darcy questioned.  She looked panicked and Nebula immediately went into a defensive position, pulling a knife from nowhere and looking ready to defend her new King.  "Shit! Barton is expected there within the hour. Let's go before someone winds up fileted."   
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
"Oh, this looks bad, I know, but see, Little American Monarch Tiny-person, I was only trying to help."

  
  
Darcy looked around at the Sanctum and her jaw dropped.  M'Baku scratched the back of his head and tried and failed to look sheepish.  He looked quite proud, actually.   


  
"You see, what happened was, that Princess Shuri told me that you were walking about with Rogers over there," M'Baku nodded towards Steve, who closed his eyes slowly with a low-level burn of embarrassment.  "And I thought it would be a nice treat for the White Wolf to have audio to go with the video."

  
  
Darcy continued to gape at M'Baku, and then back to the walls, where currently one Asgardian trickster god of legend was sticking with the help of something Wakandan in nature, due to its small but obviously potent nature.  On the opposite wall was Clint Barton, who was actively screaming behind a gag and trying to escape his own bonds. Wong was lying in between, knocked out cold. 

  
  
"But I came through the doors, and this one," he pointed at a very annoyed Loki, "was under constant attack of this one..."   
  


He pointed to Barton who was screaming under his nanite tech bondage at Tony to get him off of the wall.  

  
  
"And that one," M'Baku pointed at the unconscious wizard, "Was caught in the crossfire, attempting to use magic to counteract magic and arrows alike."

  
  
"What did you do to the wizard, Loki?" Thor demanded of Loki.  "Where is Sif?"   
  


Loki gave Thor an unimpressed eyebrow, obviously unable to speak thanks to the gag.  The adopted Asgardian prince's eyes went wide when he realized the Grandmaster was held in Thor's grip.  A disappointed groan could be heard behind the nanite gag.

  
  
"Actually, the wizard knocked himself out in the melee.  Magic is foolish," M'Baku concluded. He deferred to Darcy and nodded. "I stopped them from killing each other.  Now---go and punch THEM in their throats."

  
  
Loki made a sound that resembled a callous choke of laughter.

  
  
"Thor?" Darcy questioned.

  
  
"Yes, little King?" Thor answered.  

  
  
"Permission to tase your brother's junk?" Darcy wondered.

  
  
"Whatever makes you happiest," Thor nodded regally, then made the most ridiculous face at Loki, like a five year old boy who had just seen his younger brother be punished for breaking one of his toys.

  
  
"Uhm, perhaps, not the best idea to go doing that," Sif interrupted, coming through the magical doors with Shuri, Natasha and Bruce.  "Loki holds grudges."

  
  
Just then Loki managed to astrally project himself away from his restrained body.  He sneered down at Darcy and taunted, "Go and play at your games, child, we have work to do."

  
  
"Oh, good, just do it then," Sif sighed, reaching out and stopping Steve from advancing on Loki himself.  

  
  
Darcy nodded and stepped around the astral projection, avoiding it even as Loki tried to send his illusion after her and stop her.  She stood in front of his real, restrained form, shoved her taser right into his crotch and pulled the trigger. The Prince of Mischief screamed behind the gag while Thor laughed heartily and M'Baku actually got down on one knee in deference to the small King.  

  
  
The magical doors to Wakanda shifted in their image, and suddenly it was an icy planet being projected onto the glass.  Korg carefully shouldered his way through the small door, a green body in his arms. Rocket the Racoon following closely behind him.

  
  
"Gamora!" Nebula cried out, rushing around Tony and approaching Korg and her prone sister.

  
  
"Oh, hey, you redecorated, I like it a lot King Tiny. People make lovely wall hangings,” Korg declared cheerfully.  "So---here we have your friend, here, she's kind-of not-really dead, but in some sorta stasis? Like Doug was that first thirty days after the Hulk punched him in the brain.  Also, there was a weird red guy in a fun smelly dress and he screamed a lot at us."

  
  
"Yeah, so I shot him full of holes, hope that's okay," Rocket hefted his modified gun onto his shoulder.  He looked around Korg's cut and cragged calf muscle and nodded at Nebula, "Everyone's dust, but her body stayed.  We're going to get her soul back in there."

  
  
"Yes," Nebula nodded.  She turned to Darcy, another member of her blue-tinged army now and asked, "King, what do we do?"

  
  
Darcy carefully pulled her taser out of Loki's crotch and nodded before facing everyone in the room.

  
  
"Alright, now that that's done, Barton, I know it's not revenge for you, but it's done.  We all have to work together now," Darcy announced. "We have a giant purple nut sack to destroy.  The next people to infight will get worse than a fried genital. Now come on, I want theories, I want solutions, I want a plan, and I want it NOW.  Heads together, people! Let's destroy Thanos.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now that everyone is properly reunited, let’s get this show on the road, yeah?
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you want to visit me, go to my tumblr. Wahwahwaffles.tumblr.com


	10. Rest Your Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry this didn't get put out yesterday. I had a very busy day.
> 
> But I'm here today! With an overload of Darcy and Steve! And Korg. And goats! And Clint and Natasha being dorks.  
> Thanks to ragwitch/queenspuppet for the awesome beta skills. And thanks to her for being so stinking amazing.

**Chapter Ten: Rest Your Head**

 

* * *

 

"Have you slept?"

 

"Hmm?" Darcy looked up from her work at the desk she had her devoted, various subjects bring out from one of the Sanctum's magic rooms. The last two days had been very hectic since their epic planning summit had disbanded and the real work had begun. Everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but chickens that had a very complicated plan in place.

 

Jane's notes, as well as a stack of papers that Thor had brought her from some space ship pirate captain intermingled with candy bar wrappers and crudely drawn weaponry suggestions from Korg sat spread across on the mystic wood of the desk.  Darcy had been at the desk for hours after the planning session, intent on trying to figure out what other resources she had out there to make Thanos' take down happen.

 

She stopped looking at Jane's profanity ridden explanation of Pym's devices to see Steve Rogers staring down at her in earnest concern.  She couldn't help the small, slow smile spreading across her lips as her eyes went soft thanks to Steve's obvious and well placed thoughtfulness regarding her wellbeing.  In return, his eyes went soft and the flirty smile on Darcy's lips were mirrored on his own.

 

Standing immediately to Steve's right, Tony Stark crossed his arms and took an exceptionally long time to roll his eyes and heave out a heavy sigh.  Once things had been sorted out at the Sanctum, Tony had been stuck to Steve's side like glue, telling him exactly what had happened on Thanos' home planet.  Stark had said he was briefing the Universe's best tactician so they could get a handle on how to defeat Thanos. It sounded more like an eager beaver of a best friend trying to impress his coolest pal with what he had done on his summer vacation.

 

Tony hadn't enjoyed trying to steal Steve's focus away from staring dreamily at Jane Foster's lackey, who wasn't even his soul mate (supposedly, Tony had suspicions).  But he was still avidly trying to steal Steve's focus away from staring dreamily at Darcy Lewis. It was really annoying that he hadn't succeeded even a little bit.

 

"What he's trying to say is that you look really tired," Tony sassed.  "I mean, honestly, it looks like you got hit by a truck, Lewis."

 

"Oy!" Korg shouted from the other side of the long and endless room that seemed like a museum for dudes who spent an inordinate amount of money on summer magician camp.

 

"Oh Go Oy yourself you ridiculous stalactite!" Tony shouted back.

 

"Are we starting a war with the robot man?" Nebula questioned Korg.

 

"He insulted Tiny!" Korg reported, sounding as peeved as he was capable of being.  "So yeah. War it is then."

 

"I'm aware of his weak points," Nebula nodded to herself before her body coiled and got ready to strike from twenty yards away.

 

"NO WAR!  WE'VE HAD ENOUGH WAR!" Darcy half-shouted, half-singsonged.  She pointed at her two blue, self described loyal subjects and nodded, "I need a report on Gamora, please.  I would be very happy if you could go and get me one, without starting a war, or building a temple or conquering any and all land spaces in my name.  Please and thank you."

 

"She didn't say nothin' bout air space," Korg muttered to Nebula, giving a craggy half smile when the adopted daughter and future murderer of Thanos looked sincerely delighted as they stalked off towards the portal doors that would lead them to Wakanda, where Gamora was currently being looked after by Shuri and the medical staff of Wakanda.

 

She was unresponsive, although her body was one hundred percent healed.  

 

It had become clear to everyone that Jane's device had worked now.  The dust of their friends and half of the universe was proof that their energy had been changed and warped and pushed into some other space, leaving dust behind.  Gamora, who had been sacrificed to the stone, was not so lucky. Her body could live on in a vegetative state, but her soul, whatever immeasurable thing that allowed the brain to push real thought and emotion throughout a human, was gone.

 

Tony waved obnoxiously at the departing warriors who had sworn fealty to Darcy Lewis and instead looked to Steve, who seemed to be yet another warrior that had devoted himself to the petite but clearly crazed brunette in front of him.  

 

"Don't be jealous, it makes people break out," Darcy warned Tony seriously.  Her brain to mouth filter had completely vanished a few days ago in her nonstop quest to set things right once more.  

 

"I'm not _jealous_ ," Tony scoffed.

 

"You're a little brunet who is used to people chirping around you like blue birds around a princess in a Disney movie, and now I have literal blue people doing it to me and you're all weird," Darcy wiggled her fingers around Tony to convey just how weird he was being.  

 

To her detriment, because Steve reached out and grabbed Darcy's hand, holding on with a delightful blend of strength and softness that had parts of her spine going completely liquid.  Both Darcy and Tony looked to Steve, with Tony appearing only a little put out by Steve's concern for Darcy.

 

"Your fingers---there's a tremor," Steve accused, his left hand gently laying on top of the hand he held with his right, his touch reassuring and soothing.

 

"I may or may not be over caffeinated," Darcy whispered, her eyes round and unblinking as she stared up at Steve.

 

"You NEED to sleep, Darcy," Steve very delicately suggested.  

 

Tony wrinkled his nose and muttered about Steve’s missing politeness in airports.

 

"Boss?" Friday questioned from Tony's watch.

 

"Hold on, I'm watching something, it's very irritating, and I want to see how it ends," Tony mumbled.

 

"Boss, I have a call, coming from Scott Lang, it's apparently very urgent," Friday repeated.

 

"Who is Scott Lang?" Tony shrugged at Steve, truly befuddled.

 

"Patch him through, Friday," Steve ordered.

 

"Not so tender now," Tony mumbled under his breath.  

 

"STARK!  What in the hell happened to my people? I go to some weird other realm and managed to come back and---they're all---they're all just---poof, gone and all that's left is dust and---where in the hell are you?" Scott Lang shouted over the phone.

 

"Lang?  This is Steve Rogers," Steve interrupted.

 

"Mr. Lang, this is Darcy Lewis, Doctor Jane Foster's assistant.  Can you tell me who is dust? Was it Hank Pym?" Darcy questioned, hoping that was why the man hadn't returned her calls.  

 

"Who isn't dust?" Scott demanded.  "My crew---my ex-wife, my DAUGHTER is gone.  What in the hell happened?"

 

"They're okay, they're going to be okay, I promise you, Mr. Lang," Darcy said earnestly.  "Where are you? We could use you here, and your suit. And really, any of Pym's technology you can get your hands on."

 

"I'm in Malibu, ready to rip Stark's new mansion to pieces," Scott admitted, sounding suddenly very weary.  "Miss Lewis, are you sure that everyone is going to be okay?"

 

Darcy hesitated for just a split second, her eyes quickly darting to where Steve still held her hand.  Her spine went a little rigid and she nodded before speaking her confirmation out loud, "I promise you, that everyone you are missing right now will be back.  And it'll be sooner if you can help us."

 

"I---how do I get to where you are?" Scott asked.  "My wheels guy is---well, dust."

 

"Tony, can you get someone to bring him out?" Steve asked quietly.

 

"Ugh, fine, whatever," Tony sighed.  "Is this the guy that shrinks?"

 

"Yeah," Steve nodded and then with a sly smile said, "Also the guy who got bigger too."

 

"And hopped into other dimensions," Darcy revealed.  

 

"What?" Loki stepped out of the shadows, as if he had been hidden there by magic all along.  "You mean to tell me some moronic Midgardian has found a way to traverse dimensions?"

 

"What, like it's hard?" Scott muttered over the phone.

 

"Take me to him," Loki demanded, gripping Stark by the shoulder.

 

"HEY!  HEY!" Stark complained immediately.  "Don't you---"

 

It was too late, because Loki had begun physically dragging Tony away from Darcy and Steve, yanking him towards the staircase to go into the cave-like libraries where Heimdall was.  Darcy waved at the pair of them cheerfully before turning back to Steve, her gaze flicking to their held hands again.

 

"Can I take you somewhere?" Steve blurted.

 

Darcy smiled serenely and shrugged.  "I have some time."

 

* * *

**_Washington DC_ **

 

“This is ridiculous!  You can’t stonewall me, boy!  I invented the stonewall, for Christ’s sake! He is a junior senator and should not be responsible for matters of national security.  Do you know who I am?”

 

An arrow clipping the short hair on the back of his neck stopped Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross from continuing his tirade against the unfortunate soul on the other end of the telephone who was not including the vile man in on global efforts after the great soul dusting of 2018.  Ross stopped screaming and had half a second to look annoyed before the arrow imbedded into the bookshelf behind him. He opened his mouth to shout out an insult when the arrowhead let out a sonic wave that hit Ross directly.

 

The Secretary of State crumpled like a slinky clumsily sliding down too many steps at once.  Seconds later, Natasha walked through the door and went to the window of the office, opening it completely to allow Clint entrance.

 

“Always with the flash,” Natasha smirked at her best friend.

 

“Hey, you just wanted to zap him,” Clint waved her off as she went about ransacking through Ross’s phone.  He occupied himself with artfully arranging Ross’s limbs to make it look like he was impersonating Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson all at once.   “He put me in the underwater big house, I earned the honor of making him wet himself.”

 

The spies easily fell into old routines, Natasha doing the heavy lifting while Clint skittered about the crime scene, causing mischief for later.  Natasha did her best not to roll her eyes as Clint set up small traps inside of desk drawers to explode with confetti and itching powder when opened.  But she did arch an eyebrow, wordlessly condemning Clint’s immaturity when he went for the sharpie and began to doodle cartoon penises on Ross’s face.

 

“Have to say, I was surprised when you were you know, not dust,” Clint admitted casually, concentrating on making sure the penis on Ross’s forehead was properly proportioned.  

 

“How so?” Natasha humored him as she leaned over the desk and went to work on Ross’s computer.

 

“Well, I mean, you’re kind of a shared soulmate.  Of Laura and I,” Clint reminded her. “I mean, specially cause of how Foster got split from her soul mates.  Just kind of figured I’d be missing my girls.”

 

“If I’m one of your girls, then why did the two of you never let me share your bed?” Natasha challenged.  Her lips settled into a cat like smile.

 

“Hey now---”

 

“I mean, after two glasses of pink moscato, Laura always was more than willing to cuddle with me,” Natasha reminded him.  “And she _did_ say that if she were stranded on a deserted island I would be the one thing she would bring with her.”

 

“Come on, Nat---”

 

“I understand your precious masculinity can’t handle me like that,” Natasha teased.  “And while you and Laura are my dearest and most treasured friends…”

 

Clint watched her carefully as her words went into the air and dissipated.  She didn’t continue, but Clint knew his friend, inside and out. He had seen her at her most wild, feral times after she had come in from the cold.  He and Laura had been there when she went through her nightmares for years after he had pulled her out of the Red Room program.

 

“You know I figured out a long time ago that _Yasha_ was sort of the Russian form of _Jimmy_ ,” Clint muttered.  

 

Natasha turned away from her diligent work and gave Clint one of those rare, vulnerable, soft smiles that she gave very few people in the world.  It made her look a decade younger, like a teenage girl who had just thought about her very first summer love.

 

“Imagine my surprise when Jimmy wasn’t some tragic little Russian asshole who worked in the Red Room kitchens, but was actually a master assassin carved out of a World War II hero,” Clint deadpanned.  “Boy, was my face red.”

 

“Shut up,” Natasha’s vulnerable smile was gone and she immediately went back to work at the computer.  

 

“So, is Wakanda romantic at nightfall?” Clint’s eyebrows bounced up and down on his brow suggestively.

 

“Shut up,” Natasha repeated, the hint of a laugh shadowing the words.

 

“How did you guys sneak it around Rogers?  He’d have demanded to know your intentions towards his Bucky---and also Barnes’ intentions towards his pseudo-sister,” Clint continued.  “I mean I know his skill set, Barnes is probably great at hiding in the shadows, but Rogers has super senses, he could sniff it out when you’re having hanky panky.”

 

“Shut up!” Natasha laughed, genuinely, causing Clint to snicker with her.  It was the first time the two of them had laughed in a long time, and it was sorely needed.  She sighed and clicked into a folder that had been heavily guarded on the computer. “Alright, he’s got something here.”

 

Thaddeus Ross had spent the better part of his adult life hoarding people and things across the globe like a secret army in his back pocket.  They were going to need every ounce of firepower they could get to defeat Thanos and not one person on their team had a problem with pilfering through Ross’s toy chest.  

 

Natasha looked at Clint, and despite his covert tactical suit, he was showing the traces of the beard he attempted to grow during his downtime.  His hair was longer than ever, having grown out with his downtime in the last two years since his release from the Raft. Laura preferred it that way, despite how short he usually needed to keep it for work.

 

“Remember Tokyo?” Natasha looked downright devilish.

 

Clint sighed and his entire posture sagged.  “Awww, Ronan. No.”

 

* * *

**_Wakanda_ **

 

"Baaaahhhhh!"

 

Darcy jumped in her place, the loud and insistent bleating of the goat was a shock to her overly caffeinated and exhausted system.  She spun around and was faced with a very craggly and scruffy looking goat, horns looking dangerous and ready to ram right into her hip.  The goat bleated at her again as Steve continued to try and gain access to the riverside hut.

 

"Baah, right back at you, goat-face," Darcy taunted the goat and looked around anxiously.

 

Steve had led her through the Sanctum to the three portal windows that were now permanently opened to Wakanda.  He'd nodded respectfully at the Dora Milaje that were given the task of guarding the portals, and then taken Darcy's arm, leading her away from the city, towards rivers and farmlands.  The entire one mile walk had been filled with Steve telling her about his time in Wakanda since the Avengers had disbanded.

 

He spoke of how the culture, the food, the disposition of the society was something of a utopia to him.  He'd lived through the Great Depression and the subsequent relief efforts and he always had run a little socialist, even in textbooks, so to see it at work, to see it firing on all cylinders, was something that gave Steve real happiness.  

 

Darcy had just stared at him when he got into the nitty gritty of how everything worked, and she could feel that her eyes certainly drifted into the heart-eyed variety at all of the socio-economic jumble he was trying to repeat to her.  He spoke of Bucky's great love of Wakanda, of both of their gratitude towards the country.

 

It was no wonder the goat got to sneak up on Darcy when she was too busy staring at Steve's back with stars in her eyes.  

 

"BAAAAH!!!"

 

"Damn you!" Darcy jumped again, having fallen back into the trap.

 

"Dernier, you better watch it!" Steve warned, turning around and glaring down at the goat.  "Just because your minder isn't here doesn't mean you forget your manners. Now, go on and go back to your lunch."

 

The goat bleated once more at Steve before turning and traipsing back to a small barn structure behind the modest living quarters that Steve was opening up.  Darcy watched as he finally found what he was looking for, a key under a small potted succulent.

 

"Shuri made fun of us the whole day when we asked for real locks and not one of her amazing toys," Steve admitted.

 

"I've only known Princess Shuri for like...I don't even know how long now, because time has stopped being real?" Darcy laughed to herself, shaking her head as Steve opened the door for her and gestured that she should walk through it.  "I don't want to sleep, Steve."

 

"Alright, then you don't have to sleep," Steve promised her, although his expression clearly stated that he thought she desperately NEEDED a nap.   "I just want to show you something."

 

"Okay," Darcy nodded, stepping through the door.  She valiantly tried to ignore the shiver that went through her entire body when Steve placed a hand on the small of her back to guide her through.  

 

The inside of the quarters didn't exactly reflect what she thought it would.  It was an amalgamation of sleek Wakandan technology, meshed with a good deal of their style, coupled with a few pieces of furniture that looked like they belonged in a museum.  And then there were the little trinkets, peppered throughout the wide open living space: an intricately painted set of nesting dolls probably bought from an awful tourist shop in Moscow lined the kitchen counter, there was a medium sized box on the coffee table, and inside was growing an infinitesimally small bonsai tree, and hanging from the wall was a collage of postcards, from all around the world.

 

"Uhm, I send them to Bucky.  And so does Nat. And Sam too, sometimes.  Wanda..." Steve explained. "He doesn't go out with the rest of us.  So, we send the world to him when we're out."

 

"That's truly lovely," Darcy whispered.  

 

"We don't have food---someone must have come by and cleaned it out since the fight," Steve reached for two cups and filled them with water from what looked like a self-filling pitcher.  He handed her cup off to her and nodded towards the back wall of the living space. "I wanted to show you something."

 

"Right," Darcy nodded, taking a sip of her water before following him.  

 

The back wall glimmered and soon revealed that it was entirely glass.  Steve reached for a handle and led Darcy through it again, a hand to the small of her back.  There was a small deck in the back of Bucky and Steve's living quarters, and it was furnished with a small, white wrought iron table that could have been plucked right out of some French cafe, the table was littered with at least a dozen books, three of which were from the Percy Jackson series.  

 

Facing away from the house was another chair, with a small easel set up.  Nothing was on the easel, but Darcy was sure that someone was making good use of it, thanks to the large amount of small paint tins that littered the ground under the easel.  Steve quickly led her past that and brought her to a small, low couch that was covered in pillows and faced one of the most spectacular views Darcy had ever been lucky enough to see in real life.

 

"The rivers and streams of Wakanda bring hope, that every day something can be completely new and different than what was there before," Steve said softly, smiling at the sight of a forked river, the water shimmering with the sunlight like multifaceted jewels.  Steve huffed out a self-conscious breath and shrugged, "T'Challa is a lot better at speaking about Wakanda."

 

"You didn't do too shabby," Darcy promised him, placing her glass of water down on the side table and lowering herself onto the little couch.  She groaned and looked at Steve with suspicion, "I said I didn't want to sleep."

 

"I know," Steve nodded.  He smirked and caught the very cozy pillow she threw at him.  "So sorry for the comfort, Ms. Lewis, I'll see what I can do about finding you a bed of nails."

 

"Thank you," Darcy answered back with flirty primness.  

 

Steve beamed at her like a thousand watt bulb before folding his body in such a way that he was sitting next to her, just a few millimeters away from touching her leg with his leg.  He looked both elated and nervous and Darcy couldn't for the life of her understand how that somehow translated into ridiculously handsome in her brain centers.

 

"So far, my happiest moments in life have been right here," Steve revealed.  "Bucky and Natasha reading over there. Sam sitting here trying to spoil the ending of Harry Potter for Bucky.  Wanda coming out with some kind of tasty bubble filled drink she had bought on one of her travels."

 

"I'm glad that you all were together," Darcy smiled.  "And I promise, you're going to get them back."

 

"Yeah," Steve nodded.  "But at what cost?"

 

"What?" Darcy furrowed her brow.

 

"You haven't been very forthcoming about that part, Darcy," Steve reminded her.  "And---and you're worried. I can tell."

 

"Everyone is worried," Darcy countered easily.  

 

"I---who is your soulmate, Darcy?" Steve blurted out.  "Who---who did you lose, to the stone?"

 

Darcy couldn't answer, her throat closed up and she looked out to the river, squinting a little at the brilliance of the light bouncing off of the water.  It had to be very late in the afternoon, because the glare felt like the first gentle orange of the sunset beginning. It was a little too orange, actually and Darcy suddenly stood, stepping towards the edge of the deck with a defiant expression on her face as she tried to physically will the orange away.

 

"I don't know," she mumbled, glaring as the edges of orange faded, leaving behind a golden yellow hue of the natural sunlight.  She continued to stare down nothing at all, screaming internally that it wasn't time yet, that the deal hadn't been completed.

 

She didn't even notice that Steve had taken her hand, leading her back to the couch and pushing her gently to sit.  She didn't notice when he shook out a cozy, brightly colored blanket and went to cover her with it. She barely heard him humming slightly, something old and well-worn and lovely.  She only noticed when she jolted awake and the light was a little dimmer, the sun setting on another day in Wakanda.

"What--I didn't want to sleep," Darcy murmured, turning and looking at a guilty Steve who had been sitting next to her, supporting her as she dosed.

 

"You're gonna run yourself into Shuri's medical bay, and believe me, she doesn't exactly have a bedside manner," Steve tried to joke.

 

"I don't...I can’t, I don't want to sleep!" Darcy cried out, her eyes instantaneously filling with tears that she had managed to keep at bay for days now.  "I won't miss anything, I can't miss it. I can sleep---later."

 

"Darcy, please, what's happening?" Steve wondered softly, placing his hands on Darcy's trembling shoulders as she sobbed silently.  "Please tell me so that I can help you."

 

"No, no you really can't help, this was a mistake," Darcy shook him off and rose again, trying her damndest to get it all together.  "I should go back to the Sanctum. Mr. Lang might be back and we can---"

 

"Rogers!" a loud shout reverberated from the living quarters, loud enough to cause a flock of birds to take flight into the brilliantly colored sky.  

 

M'Baku came traipsing onto the deck, and upon seeing Darcy, a disappointed look fell over his face.  He looked up at the sky and shook his head.

 

"I'm very sorry to bother you," and the giant Jabari leader did genuinely look sorry.  "Shuri has made a discovery. About the stones."

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading!!!
> 
> Come and visit [my tumblr!](http://wahwahwaffles.tumblr.com/)


	11. Secret Weapon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! 
> 
> I sincerely apologize for the long wait in between chapters. I had a very crazy semester and am now just finding time and energy and desire to write again. 
> 
> To generally recap: Thanos' snap happened, but it happened with some interference from Jane and Darcy, who meddled with the soul stone and caused the dusted half of everyone in the universe's soul matchgetting trapped inside the soul stone instead of all dead and stuff. Now, Darcy has a super team on one side working on finding a way to defeat Thanos, and Jane has a super team on the inside, working on how to get out before something weird and creepy happens in the weird and creepy soul stone. Also Darcy is hiding a deal she made with the soul stone and she and Steve are adorable and totally going to fall in all encompassing love. 
> 
> Thanks to my ever amazing sailor wife and beta, queenspuppet/ragwitch. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

**Chapter Eleven: Secret Weapon**

  
"At first I thought the readings were just residual energy signatures from the transfer of our people to the soul stone.  But it wasn't just these really awesome little fragments from the soul stone. It was a polarized fragmentation of---"   
  
"English, child," M'Baku grumbled.   
  
Shuri made a small barking sound at M'Baku before going right back into her technobabble, "There were clusters of afreeticles that had enough voltage to match with the insolation readings from a---"   
  
M'Baku singsonged a short phrase in Jabari dialect.   
  
Shuri glared at him.   
  
"It wasn't just the dust of my brother and our favorite people, it was also dust from the STONES," Shuri spoke deliberately and extra slow, her eyes rolling dramatically as she did so.  M'Baku wrinkled his nose at her and she held two middle fingers up at him.   
  
"Thor's report said the glove was damaged due to the amount of power that went through it with the snap," Steve nodded.  "We knew that."   
  
"Yes, but it's more than that," Bruce mumbled, looking up from Shuri's copious notes.  "She found bits of the stones, the glove was damaged, but the stones that Thanos has---they aren't complete anymore."   
  
"He's weaker," M'Baku concluded.   
  
"Not weak enough," Bruce hedged.  "But weaker, definitely."   
  
"This is good information, but we should still continue on with our plan," Steve concluded, looking to Darcy, who was drinking a cup of tea that Bruce had steeped.  She seemed distracted by a hologram of one of the stones, the soul stone, staring at it with a hint of distaste. "If the stones are weakened enough, we have a greater chance now."   
  
"It's more than that, I have approximately twenty-five thousand complete megabyte files full of information regarding Vision's mind stone, and two hours ago, we finished reading them," Shuri's energy and sudden excitement were palpable.   
  
"What took you so long?" Bruce wisecracked, but his impish smile immediately vanished when M'Baku turned to look at him fiercely.  "It was---I was just. Failing at being funny?"   
  
"Unclench, tiny one," M'Baku chuckled at Banner’s stuttering. 

  
"I can remake them," Shuri blurted.   
  
  
Darcy's tea cup hit the ground and shattered as she turned to look at Shuri with wide open eyes.  Steve walked back two steps and gripped Darcy’s trembling right hand in his left. She was humming with caffeine and energy and desperation and it was frightening and thrilling to Steve at the same time.   
  
"You can---you can remake them?" Darcy repeated in a whisper.   
  
"I think," Shuri nodded.  She looked at M'Baku who gave her a slight nod and Shuri stood a little taller, nodding tightly, "I can."   
  
"We could use what you make to destroy the damaged original stones," Steve felt a thrill of hope when Darcy squeezed his hand.     
  
"We'll need someway to wield them, but yes," Shuri nodded.     
  
"Do it," Darcy nodded.  "What do you need? Do you need---I mean, shit, are you the same kind of genius that Jane is?  Should I go out and buy poptarts and gummy bears? How can I help?"   
  
"I could use a few brilliant people if you have anymore in your pocket?" Shuri shrugged.  "Also a case of red bull?"   
  
"I can do that for you," Darcy nodded.  "I can absolutely do that for you. Let's do this."   
  


* * *

 

 

** **_Elsewhere_ ** **   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
"Yeah, I get that, but do you have any better ideas?"   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
"That's not an idea, that's just a bunch of curse words strung together."   
  
"I am Groot!"   
  
"Listen dude, I am trying my best here, and if you don't have valid constructive criticism, you can rip off a branch from your head and shove it right up your tree ass, wherever that is!"   
  
Two very different Peters looked between the two participants of the spirited conversation, absolutely gobsmacked that it was taking place.  Groot, sure, he'd been saying the same three words his entire life...both of his entire lives. But Jane Foster was a mortal human woman who seemed to be conversing with the tree-being like she understood every word he was attempting to say.   
  
"Uhm," Peter Parker held up a hand in questioning.   
  
"How?" Peter Quill whispered, looking just a little pissed off.  He had worked very hard to learn how to understand Groot's language.     
  
"What?" Jane demanded hotly.   
  
"I am GROOT!" Groot irritably snarled.   
  
"Groot, you are being so rude right now," Peter Quill groaned, slapping his hand against his forehead.   
  
"I have no idea what's going on.  Like, at all," Peter Parker sighed.  The atmosphere was tense and the superheroes were all working on something important.  For some reason, Peter had been shoved over into this area with all the smartest minds in the soul stone.   
  
He would have rather followed the Falcon and the Winter Soldier to be part of the muscle.   
  
Another scream could be heard from very far away and Jane looked around at the team that was supposed to come up with a way to stop whatever nefarious thing was happening inside the soul stone.  The first one had echoed a few hours after arriving in the nebulous environment.    
  
They had becoming more frequent over time.   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
Peter Quill sighed at Groot's hushed whisper to him.  He put a comforting hand on Groot's branch and whispered, "I don't care if you think she's smart and pretty, this is not how we show we like girls.  It's totally lame to pull pigtails, man. You just gotta branch up and say something."   
  
"She's taken," Valkyrie announced as she strode into the meeting of scientists and other brilliant mad men and other life forms.  "Twice over."   
  
"I am Groot," the walking, talking tree spat out miserably.   
  
"Yeah, I get it buddy, someday you'll find someone who you'll want to bang.  I mean...do you bang? That seems wrong, where's Gamora?" Peter Quill wrinkled his nose in disgust with his own words.  "She was always better at this."   
  
"She's still on a scouting mission with King T'Challa and the White Wolf," Valkyrie waved her hand dismissively.  She looked to Jane and reported solemnly, "They sent me back to tell you that the attacks are getting closer."   
  
"We know," Jane nodded, looking to the assembled hive mind for some assistance.  "We can't know how to fight something until we know what we're fighting."   
  
"Gamora thinks that it's the souls that have been traded over the course of time," Valkyrie reported.  "And honestly, if someone who I loved and trusted traded me for a shiny bit of jewelry, I'd probably go on a murderous rampage too."   
  
She shrugged and smirked as she admitted, " _ Drunken _ murderous rampage."   
  
"How does a soul attack another soul?" Peter Parker wondered as he kicked out his right foot slightly, flicking an orange fleck that looked like a stone.   
  
"Hold on, how did you do that?" Jane demanded, looking down at the younger Peter's feet.     
  
Their time in the soul stone had been strange, to say the least.  There was no way a few trillion souls should fit in such a space, and yet, the heroes that went out to patrol always came back saying that no matter how far they went, there was still more to explore.  There was no end to the world.    
  
There was no water at their feet any longer, but the surface had been smooth and somehow cushioned as they stood, as if they were not actually touching the surface, but rather floating millimeters above it.  But Peter Parker had just kicked SOMETHING.    
  
"I was just kicking rocks, Doctor Foster," Peter Parker shrugged.  "You know, when you're frustrated. Kick rocks? It’s like an old timey saying, ask---"   
  
Jane fell to her feet and slapped her hand on the ground, sure enough, she met the cushioned resistance before touching the smooth surface.  She wrinkled her nose and slapped again.    
  
"I am Groot?"   
  
Groot's arms grew towards the ground and he began hitting against the cushion of air in time with Jane's strikes.  Peter Parker looked down at them in confusion, but nevertheless followed Jane to the ground and put his hand against the smooth orange surface that they were trapped in.  Sure enough, he felt solid, smooth, warm glass beneath his palm.   
  
"Peter, imagine you're touching water," Jane asked quietly.   
  
"Woah!" he called out as he fell through the surface he had just been standing on, but Valkyrie quickly pulled him up and out of the orange liquid.   
  
"Okay, okay.  Okay, I get this.  I think," Jane nodded, she looked to Groot and put her hand on the juncture of wood that was his shoulder.  "I need the purest souls and I need them now."   
  
"I am Groot."   
  
Groot rose quickly and began running away from Jane and her assembled mind hive.  Peter Quill held up a finger and shook his head, although his face clearly said he didn't want to disagree with the future queen of Freaking Asgard (as she had been introduced to him by Valkyrie), he still had to speak up.   
  
"How exactly is he going to explain to others that they're needed?" Quill wondered.  "I mean, I get it, you can talk to him because of---I have no idea how you can talk to him actually, but you can.  Other people? I'm not so sure that's a good idea."   
  
"Then go follow him, genius!" Jane ordered.  "I need people who are good. Right down to their core."   
  
She pointed to a confused and blushing Peter Parker and ordered, "Get me more like him.  Now."

 

* * *

  
  
** **_Wakanda_ ** **   
  
Steve followed Darcy outside after she had made a few suggestions of who to find and gather to help Shuri in her quest.  She said nothing to him, her expression unreadable, but she linked her arm in his and began walking, and Steve found that he was unable and unwilling to not follow her. 

 

The sun was sinking in Wakanda, and aside from the clear chaotic and exhausted energy wafting off of Darcy, it kind of felt like taking a slow stroll with a sweetheart in the most beautiful place on Earth.  They didn't speak, but the sound of children playing in the distance and the low white noise of the vibranium hum coming from the city was an ambient kind of calming music in its own right.   
  
Thanos and soul stones and universe saving aside, it was a little slice of heaven for Steve.   
  
Darcy's hand was clutching Steve's forearm, purple painted nails just barely digging into the flesh.  Her weight against him was getting heavier with each passing step. By the time they had gotten to his Wakandan home, the side of her head was completely resting on his bicep.       
  
  
"Darcy?" Steve whispered, opening the door and letting her lead him straight back to the deck at the back of the house.     
  
"You know, I met an official from Vanaheim once, just once.  He said that Shuri of Wakanda was the most brilliant mind that Midgard had to offer," Darcy's words were coming too fast, slurring together in her exhaustion.   "Jane and I had no idea how Shuri had been in contact with someone from one of the other nine realms."   
  
"She's the most brilliant person I've ever met.  And I've met Bruce Banner and Tony Stark and Jane Foster," Steve agreed, swallowing hard when Darcy let her nails drag down his forearm, her hand clasping his and tugging at him as she sat down on one of the low, cushioned benches looking out at the water.   
  
"She had been twelve years old at the time," Darcy admitted with a chuckle, then immediately sobering and looking at Steve once he sat next to her, searching his face for the truth.  "If she can remake the stones we could---we could fix the whole thing, right?"   
  
"Yes, absolutely," Steve assured her.  "Darcy, we can find a way to fix everything.  We will. Whatever deal you made---"   
  
"Oh sweet and fluffy bastard lord," she whispered, taking a big shuddering breath and blowing it out.  "I'm so tired."   
  
"Sleep, I'll stay, I'll---I'll watch you," Steve finished, smiling just a little at how creepy it sounded.  She didn't seem to mind it, instead giving him a glimpse of a gap toothed grin that could have outshone the sun.  He pulled her to him and under his arm, marveling as she folded her legs on the bench and immediately melded into his side, fitting against him as if she were made for him, specifically.   
  
"I didn't want to miss it," Darcy mumbled sleepily.   
  
"You won't," Steve promised.   
  
"I didn't want to go," Darcy's words were so muffled and slurred they could barely be made out.   
  
"I won't let you," Steve shook his head imperceptibly.   
  
"I didn't know it would feel like this with you," Darcy yawned and it was a long moment before she spoke again.  "I don't want to say goodbye."   
  
It was Steve's turn to be silent now as Darcy finally succumbed to the sleep that had been trying to claim her for more than a few days at that point.  He held her as tightly as he dared, hoping to provide her with some sense of security in her sleep. He watched as the sun disappeared in a pinkish orange glow, letting the purple of night descend. 

  
Her ocean blue eyes seemed to tint orange, and Steve thought it was a trick of the beautiful sunset as it disappeared behind her fluttering eyelids.  Darcy held onto him tightly, even as she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. Her hands were clenched in his t-shirt and it didn't look like she would be letting go any time soon.   
  
"I'm never going to say goodbye to you," Steve promised.  "I only just got to say hello."   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will do my damndest to get this story all finished up before End Game comes out. I promise. Thanks so much for reading!


	12. Ye Olde Adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends!
> 
> So, you know how I like departures?
> 
> Buckle up, cause we going on a helluva departure.

**Chapter Twelve: Ye Olde Adventure**

* * *

  
** ** _Unknown_** **

  
"Baaaaaaaaaaah!"   
  


"Oh for the love of the Dragon Queen.  Dernier, please, it can't be morning yet, you old goat!"    
  


Darcy rolled in her bed, a tiny little hay stuffed mattress that was pulled as close to the hearth as she dared, hoping that she could roll away from the sound of the insistent goat.  She cracked her eyes open and hissed at the very bright sun that was filtering into the little room she called home. It wasn't much, but she had made it on her own, and she was exceptionally proud of the large work table that she used to create all different kinds of sweet and savory baked delicacies.   
  


Her one room abode consisted of a large hearth, with room enough for at least two full sized pots and a rotating spit.  She had her work table, a water basin and even a few comfortable chairs that she had traded a year's worth of her fresh baked bread with the woodworker in town.  There were knitted blankets everywhere, meaning that wherever she went in her humble home, there was somewhere soft to land.   
  


It wasn't much by some standards, but Darcy of the Lewis Orphanage certainly had reason to believe that her life had exceeded every standard that had been set for her since she had been dropped off on the orphanage doorstep.  She'd learned a craft and learned it well, and now her skill with flour and butter and what precious sugar she could find was sought after by any of the fine people from the village.   
  


Lady Pepper Potts quite liked to have an order of her rye bread for every Saturday.  Word had it that even the Crown Prince had given platitudes on her sweet biscuits when he had been served them by the Lady Jane.     
  


Darcy, who never should have even survived infancy, was now the controller of her fate, and was as successful as a parentless nobody had any right to be.     
  


Dernier, her riled and obnoxious goat bleated again, demanding his breakfast and Darcy pulled herself up and out of her comfortable bed, lazily threw a log on the fire and made her way out into the early spring sunshine.  She had just gotten her feet into her worn and weathered work boots when Dernier had began nibbling at the end of her night shirt.   
  


"Shoo, shoo, you old dumb goat!"   
  


"Well---I don't know that I've ever been greeted thusly."   
  


Darcy looked up. And up.  And up. And up one more time.  Finally, her eyes met a twinkling pair of blue eyes, crinkling with laughter around the edges.  They were set in as fine a face as any she'd seen, handsome and bearded and---regal, as it were.   
  


"Crown Prince Thor---I didn't, I'm sorry to have," Darcy stammered.   
  


"No, little hearth girl, don't worry your head, he IS an old dumb goat."   
  


Darcy looked past Prince Thor and sure enough, standing to his left was Prince Loki.  Her eyes couldn't quite hold onto his mischievous green gaze for long before she looked to the Prince's right side and saw  a very amused member of the Royal knighthood, Lady Sif. She was inelegantly snorting at the insinuation that Thor was a dumb goat.   
  


"I---I need to relieve myself immediately," Darcy blurted before running as if her life depended on it to the outhouse.  She took as long as she could, pointedly washing her hands afterwards at the little basin next to the shack.    
  


It was absurd that the Crown Prince should be at her lowly abode.  And to have his brother and the Lady Sif there as well! Darcy tried to think of what she had done wrong in the last few weeks, and aside from letting her landlord Erik get too drunk at the Winter Solstice festival (and lost track of him when he went running naked through the village square), she couldn't think of one thing that would draw such a calvary to her door.     
  


She knew that the old King, Odin, was world famous for his barbaric treatment of prisoners.  Sure, the princes ran things nowadays with the Lady Queen, but Odin was still King and if he wanted Darcy's head on a pike, then he might certainly very well do it.   
  


"I've got to get out of here," Darcy breathed, looking down at her state of dress.  The shirt had been thrown out by one of the squires in town who had grown too tall too fast and it fit her just fine to sleep in, but she was certainly naked by proper standards.  Her hair was not tied back and she knew it was a wild tangle and her bosoms weren't constrained by any manner of corset.    
  


If she ran, she feared she might knock herself square in the chin with them.   
  


"No help for it," she whispered before peeking around the edge of her outhouse, seeing that the Princes and Lady Sif were still standing at her front door, with Prince Loki fiddling with a contraption she used to churn butter when she needed it.  She took a deep breath before turning and running down her lane, intent on getting to the wilderness about a quarter mile away, and there freedom and safety would be.   
  


She made it to the little stone wall around her small bit of land before she was yanked up and off her feet completely, steel bands going around her waist and hoisting her against what must be a brick wall.  She screamed and kicked and raged, which only managed to hike up her sleep shirt and destroy any sense of her modesty, as well as make the steel bands, which were large and muscled arms, move slightly so that one of the hands was cupping her left breast completely.   
  


"Oh dear Gods," the low whisper in her ear had her shrieking cease at least.   
  


"Steven, unhand the lady, she is a maiden!" Sif shouted in dismay.     
  


"She's one hand away from not being a maiden," Loki smirked.  He nodded at Steven, the mountain of a man who held Darcy close, "Thought you came to save your friend, not gain a bride."   
  


"I---I---I'm sorry," the ridiculously strong man holding Darcy stammered, but didn't let her go.  "She was trying to run away. What did you three threaten her with?"   
  


"I only threaten those that pose a threat to me---or annoy me," Loki admitted.  He smiled at Darcy like a snake about to devour a field mouse whole. "She poses no threat and I find the turn of her calves to be quite enjoyable."   
  


"Brigand!" the man shouted at Loki, taking a step forward with Darcy still in his arms.  "She is a maiden and you will treat her with kindness."   
  


"She is a maiden, Steven, and you should stop groping her breast," Thor insisted.   
  


"Oh dear Gods," Steven muttered again before dropping Darcy completely on the ground.  His throat made a high, strangled sound when he looked down at her, her shirt completely out of place, her pale cheeks turned scarlet.  He went to help her up and winced when she turned away from him. "I apologize, my lady, I meant no harm---"   
  


"Is everyone done groping the bun girl?" Tony, the blacksmith demanded from the behind Steve.  "Can we move this along? Go and rescue people that need to be rescued? Or do we all get a chance to hold the bun girl?  Because if so, I really need to find my Lady Pepper, she will delight at a chance to caress her---"   
  


"Tony!" Steven ground out.  "Enough. Lady, I apologize for what I have done to you, but please know I only wish you well.  And also, we have great need of your assistance."   
  


Darcy looked up at Steven with utter confusion written on every inch of her face.  She couldn't look away from the stranger. He didn't appear to be from the village, and his clothing was fine enough to be matched with Prince Thor's.  Perhaps not Prince Loki's, but Prince Thor's certainly. Steven was a handsome sort. Tall and broad in the shoulder, with shaggy, dark blonde hair that seemed to need a trim.     
  


His eyes were perhaps the most lovely, a steely blue that spoke wordlessly of honesty and loyalty and pride.  He was looking at her with such sincerity and care that Darcy quickly forgot about being manhandled moments ago.   
  


"Do you need buns?" Darcy wondered, her voice a little too loud and manic sounding.   
  


Steven glared at Tony before he could bark out with his laughter before looking back down at Darcy with that sincere, earnest warmth.   
  


"No, my Lady, we need you.  Will you help us?"   
  


* * *

 

The Asgard palace was a terrifying place, really.  Darcy had never been to it in all her life, just sort of gazed at it from afar.  She'd grown up in the Lewis orphanage, and when she'd turned nine, she had been taken in as a servant in the house of Foster, and had quickly found a place that suited her in the kitchens.  She'd been placed there permanently when some of the buns she had made had actually enticed the young Lady Jane out of the library she spent most of her hours in.   
  


When Lady Jane had found a place in Asgard a year ago, as the future bride of Crown Prince Thor, and more importantly a scholar in searching the stars for answers, Darcy had struck out on her own, finding the small shack on Erik Selvig's land and building her modest and relatively happy little life.   
  


Darcy wondered that maybe Jane was the reason she was being brought to the castle.  She hoped that was the reason she was being brought to the Asgard Palace. She really hoped that Odin hadn't suddenly found a desire for young flesh and she was next on the chopping block.     
  


She had had far too much time to think about it while riding in front of Lady Sif on her horse the three hours it took to get to the Asgard Palace.  She was still thinking about it when Steven, heir to the Rogers lands in the South she learned when he was properly introduced to her (and when she was more fully clothed), had put gentle hands on her waist in order to help her down from the gigantic and terrifying steed that Lady Sif lovingly referred to as Snowball.   
  


"My Lady, are you well?" Steven asked softly as he set her on her feet in the royal stables.  "In truth, you look to be trembling."   
  


"What?" Darcy blinked up at him, confused by his straightforward question.  It sounded familiar somehow. She remembered it. She'd heard it a different way, but he had said it to her before, she was sure of it.   
  


"Come along, bun girl, you're needed upstairs," Tony shouted out as he slid from his own horse and left the stables.     
  


"What am I doing here?" Darcy whispered to Steven, barely loud enough to be heard.   
  


"I apologize, I thought you knew," Steven looked aghast and put a large, strong hand on her shoulder, attempting to reassure her as he would have any of his soldiers in the field.  "We require your assistance."   
  


"Making buns?" Darcy whispered.  "For Lady Jane?"   
  


"No, not at all," Steven smiled at her gently, taking his hand off of her shoulder with only a little bit of awkwardness before gallantly offering his arm to her to lead her out of the stable.     
  


Darcy stared at him as if she didn't quite know what to do with an offered arm, and Steve did huff out a little bit of gentle laughter at that.  He carefully took her hand and tucked it into his arm before slowly walking out of the stable and right towards a very beautifully decorated hallway.     
  


"I'm not dressed fine enough to be here," Darcy fretted.   
  


"You look truly lovely," Steven promised her.  "The green in your bodice makes your eyes look like the sea."   
  


"Oh?" Darcy's eyebrows flew up her forehead and she tried not to grin back at him, despite clearly wanting to.  "I think your---your boots make you look very fancy. And tall."   
  


"Thank you," Steven laughed.  "In truth, I don't pick out my own boots."   
  


"Right, you have servants to do that?" Darcy stiffened a bit.   
  


"My country is not very rich in commodities, not as it is in Asgard, I have more than enough, but I don't have the money to employ servants," Steve admitted as they walked down a very grand hallway that sloped gently upwards, bringing them up two stories without a stair in sight.  "My closest friends, my brothers in arms picked out my boots for me. I'm something of a dunce when it comes to finery."   
  


"I should like to meet them someday, then, to compliment them on their choices.  In boots," Darcy only slightly winced at her awkwardness, which seemed abhorrent to her, but Steven only seemed to smile bigger at her.   
  


"Well then, it is very good you are here then, because you are to help us in finding my friends, as well as Lady Jane and quite a lot of other people," Steven admitted as he gently led her into a large state room, with a very large circular table, of which many different people were seated.   
  


"This our savior then, yeah?" a ridiculously muscled man painted a decided shade of blue questioned.  He gave her a smile full of craggy teeth and nodded. "Yes, she'll do fine. I like her."   
  


"I'm sorry, what?" Darcy questioned.   
  


"You're going to save our loved ones," Prince Thor announced from the largest seat at the table.  "So it has been foretold and so it shall be."   
  


He paused and shrugged, "Or at least we hope.  Prophecies are usually about fifty fifty."   
  


* * *

 

When all was said and said and said and said at the meeting of all the greatest warriors and minds of the realms, not very much was done at all.  Darcy had trouble following due to so many voices needing to be heard, but by the end of it, she’d managed to only mildly insult Stark, somehow endear herself to the giant, blue rock like man called Korg and another blue hued female warrior named Nebula, and find herself being assigned a very important mission with the knight Steve and his advisor Natasha.  

 

Darcy didn’t quite understand how she had been deemed competent enough for a mission.  However, she was not about to tell the fearsome Natasha that she would not be needing the armor that Natasha was going to have run up for her.   The expressionless woman had clearly been pulling the strings of all the warriors present, while not actually speaking a word. Darcy knew better than to disrespect such a woman.  

 

But Natasha and Stark and even the blue skinned people had to know that Darcy was simply a humble hearthkeeper and baker of tasty buns.  Thor had  _ introduced _ her as such.  

 

“ _ This is Darcy, a humble and beautiful hearthkeeper on the edge of my land, and a baker of tasty buns.  Also? Our savior as it has been foretold. _ ”

 

Darcy didn’t volunteer to save anything, much less half of the world as she knew it.  She was sitting at one of the large windows at the corner of the meeting room, looking out on the rolling hills of her home. In the great distance, she imagined she could make out the thatched roof of her humble abode.  

 

“Lady Darcy?”

  
“Present?” Darcy whispered, squinting at the view, wondering if she wasn’t seeing golden orange glinting off of water in the far distance.  Which she knew was impossible, because the day was gray and overcast now, and there was no body of water in the direction she was staring in.

 

It was a curious situation.

 

“My Lady, are you ready for our adventure?” Steve questioned, smiling at her winsomely when she finally turned to gaze up at him.  “We might even have some fun?”

 

Darcy stared at Steve quizzically, silent for an extended moment as the corners of her mouth turned downward.  Steve’s expression didn’t waver, looking excited. Eager.  _ Gleeful _ even.  It was wrong, somehow.  

 

Steve would never treat such a mission, a quest to save half of the life in the universe, with that placid, Prince Charming smile on his face.  She had seen Steve smile, truly smile, even in the worst of all situations. Her disseminating gaze went to his eyes, and instead of that glint of happiness swirling in with pain and determination she was so used to looking at now, she only saw emptiness.

 

And the hint of an orange glow.

 

He continued to smile, empty eyed and hollow as he held his hand out to her.

 

“Come, we have much to do together, Darcy.”

* * *

 

_**** Wakanda**** _

 

“Darcy?  Darcy!”

 

Steve gently shook Darcy, and something twisted in his gut when there was no response.  He had woken up just a few minutes earlier, and instead of having a warm, lovely woman in his arms, he had felt Darcy’s cold, stiff lifeless form leaning against him.  Her entire body was rigid, a lifeless statue in his embrace.

 

He maneuvered her body so she was supported by one arm and brought his hand to her brow, wincing at how cold her skin was.  She was breathing, very shallowly and her pulse was far too slow to be healthy. He gently lifted her eyelid and whispered,

 

“No, that’s--- _ Darcy _ ?”

 

Instead of those beautiful eyes the color of the sea, he only saw a bright, violent orange light shining back at him.  The very same color that the soul stone had been on Thanos’ infinity gauntlet.

 

“Darcy!  Wake up, please.  Darcy!”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ????
> 
> whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
> 
> If you are confused, that's okay. 
> 
> See you in two weeks!


	13. This is Not the Soulmate You Were Looking For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Okay so after last chapters trippy premise, we have one big answer. Maybe. I think.

**Yes Oh Chapter Thirteen: This is Not the Soulmate You Were Looking For**

* * *

 

** _ **Wakanda**_ **   


"Move!"

  
  
Korg had been around for quite a long time. He'd seen wars, famine, stars crumbling in on themselves and had even spent an inordinate amount of time fighting to the death for the amusement of a pleasure planet run by the infamous Grandmaster.  He'd been to blame for the great Diwushian planet chilling two hundred years ago. It wasn't so bad as an ice age, more like needing a light sweater constantly, but still. He'd organized it. And been punished accordingly.

  
  
He had been through a lot.  But when that tiny little Wakandan princess told him to MOVE, he moved.  He immediately jumped from his (far too comfortable) chair and grabbed Nebula with a heavy arm and pulled her away from her green sister's bedside.  The Earth book Nebula had been reading softly to her sister, with very funny additional snide commentary fell to the ground with a loud boom.

  
  
"WHAT ARE YOU---"

  
  
Nebula was half a second away from fighting back, when the door to the medical observation unit zipped open and Shuri, Princess of this far too advanced Wakandan nation came running through, breathless.  Nebula looked for her weapons, mind instantly calculating how to best defend whatever the fearsome little Shuri was running from. She flew through defensive maneuvers, knowing the best way to utilize Korg as a shield for the prone Gamora and the fearsome (but still physically vulnerable) Shuri.  

  
  
Gamora had not been expecting Steve Rogers to run through the door with her new leader, Darcy in his arms.  And she had not been expected to be dropped right on her ass by Korg.

  
  
"Hey, what's the matter with my King Tiny, now?  What'd you do to her?" Korg demanded, stepping towards Steve while the terrified human was gently placing Darcy down on a medical observation unit that had been quickly placed next to Gamora's body.

  
  
"She went to sleep about six hours ago," Steve announced, as if continuing a conversation he had been having with Shuri along the way.  His hands shook at his sides as he stared down at Darcy as Shuri and a few other medical techs began to work on rye unconscious woman.

  
  
Digital displays lit up around the room and Korg and Nebula both began to walk towards them to read them.

  
  
"When I woke up, she was cold, stiff---the light behind her eyes," Steve took a slow, deep breath, looking bewildered.  “It was a shimmering orange?”

  
  
"Soul stone," Nebula pointed to one of the incomprehensible readouts.  She looked to Korg, confused, "When did she make a pact with the soul stone?" 

  
"Well, before?" Korg answered as Steve began to pace, his eyes never leaving Darcy's prone form as the Wakandans worked.  "You know, before that purple wanker---sorry, know he's sort of your pop, but he's a wanker."

  
  
"Agreed," Nebula nodded curtly.

  
  
"She did some sort of agreement.  I didn't like it a bit, but you know, when you got a good leader, you try not to argue too much," Korg shrugged.

  
  
"I've never had a good leader," Nebula muttered, looking down at Darcy and then snapping her head to Gamora, noting the similarity in their vegetative states.  "Has she been sacrificed to the stone?" 

  
"What?" Steve's voice was barely a whisper as his whole body flinched as Shuri made a small injection into Darcy's veins.

  
  
Nebula was on him in a heartbeat, a blade to Steve's throat, his body pushed against the vibranium frame of the room. Her elbow dug into a tender point at his side and her one knee was pressed unforgivingly against his groin.     


"Uhhhhhh---" Korg held up one finger slowly.  "Should we be attacking King Tiny's concubine like that?"  


"Who is whose concubine?  Why are you crushing Thor's friend's dick?" Rocket requested as he strolled into the room carrying a large brown sack over his shoulder, his mouth full of half eaten apple.  "Try and get me the gauntlet from around his wrist, I might need it later."  


"EVERYONE OUT!" Shuri shouted as she continued to work.  

  
  
"I'm not---" Steve gasped out before letting out a grunt of pain as Nebula obviously twisted her knee viciously.  He got a very angry look on his face and then managed to push off the alien slightly, freeing himself from her knee and twisting.

  
  
Nebula met him step for step though, and they began trading quick blows, almost too quick to be seen. Forearm to a sternum, hard fists to the gut, Steve's hand gripping Nebula's wrist to immobilize her knife before a quick strike.  

  
  
Korg looked to Darcy automatically for instructions on how to handle this, but his newly acquired King was oblivious to the melee that had begun.  He sighed and saw Shuri go for a weapon to blast at the fighting twosome and knew King Tiny/Darcy definitely wouldn't want either her concubine or her fierce warrior Nebula harmed by the genius.  He put his fingers against his mouth and whistled. The sound was a harsh one, rock on rock scraping against each other that had everyone, including the Wakandans who had been trying to ignore the fight, put their hands over their ears and double over in painful agitation.

  
  
"Alright then, seeing as King Tiny is out of it right now, we're gonna just do as I think she'd do," Korg announced.  He pointed at Nebula, who was about to strike Steve once more. "You go to that corner." 

  
Nebula went to disagree but Korg shook his head, "You're not doing our King any favors here.  Go on then."

  
  
"I will flay him if he has sacrificed her---"   


"I didn't sacrifice ANYONE," Steve defended.  

  
  
"Her stasis is not the same as Gamora's," Shuri announced.  

  
  
"We don't sacrifice other people here, Nebula," Steve continued.  He felt that the suddenly bewildered daughter of Thanos didn't quite understand as she looked to Darcy and Gamora forlornly.  "That's not the way we work. Shuri---Darcy's eyes."

  
  
The orange glow was intense when one of the techs lifted Darcy's eyelids, lighting up the whole room in the color of the soul stone. 

  
"Uhoh, that can't be good," Rocket mumbled before taking another large bite of an apple.

   
  
"You've seen this before?" Shuri wondered, nearly tripping over the book Nebula had dropped. She huffed out a heavy sigh and looked back to the blaster she had nearly used on the idiots a few moments prior.  Instead, she bent over and picked up the book and shoved it square into Nebula's gut. 

  
"Well, I mean, yeah," Rocket shrugged, looking casually up at Shuri.  He winked at her in some attempt at a flirtatious manner and said, "You never taken on the full force of an infinity stone before?"

  
  
"Can't say that I have had that distinct pleasure," Shuri shot back in annoyance.  She looked to her readouts again and shook her head slightly, her brow furrowing with tension, "Whatever this is---whatever is happening to her, it's getting worse." 

  
"Korg," Steve's voice was a low, booming thing in the room.

  
  
"Didn't do it," Korg automatically replied. 

  
"We need to find out what kind of deal Darcy made," Steve announced.  He looked to Nebula as well. "You're her faithful subjects. Let's go and find some answers."

  
  
"For King Tiny!" Korg held up a large fist, only slightly grazing the roof of the medical unit.

  
  
"For Bast's sake!" Shuri shouted.  "ALL OF YOU OUT!" 

 

* * *

  
** _**Unknown**_ **

  
  
They traveled quickly from the green lush lands of Asgard, leaving behind the rolling hills full of growing wheat and barley, replacing them with the flat, dark and rocky landscape of the mostly friendly neighboring kingdom of Xavier.  Lady Natasha had helpfully explained to Darcy along the way, stating that while Xavier was friendly, they would be no help on this particular mission that she, Steve and Darcy were currently on.   


Darcy felt as if entire kingdoms were going by in the blink of an eye as she rode in front of Steve on his horse.  It was almost unnatural how she would blink her eyes and a rock facade was suddenly replaced with a lush jungle land of the kingdom of Wakanda, and then be instantly replaced with dusty mountains and carved temples of the Ancient One.    


There was no sense in it, she didn't even remember getting off of the horse for a privy break or to eat or anything.  But they'd already traveled far and wide. So much farther than she had ever dreamed of traveling in her ordinary life as the happy little baker of buns that humbly dwelled on the edges of Asgard.  

  
  
Darcy blamed Steve.  He was entirely too warm.  And solid. And his even breathing behind her while they travelled was like a steady, strong lullaby.  He hadn't said much so far, but he'd been continually offering her the small pouch of water that never seemed to empty despite  them both drinking hardily.

  
  
"Why haven't we stopped?" Darcy demanded suddenly as the weather became colder very quickly, the hint of a frost tinged wind stinging against her blushing cheeks.

  
  
Steve's breathing hesitated, a break in the dreamlike monotony that had been keeping Darcy so very contented on their travels.  He adjusted his large arms caging her in on the horse, as if providing her more protection from the coming blast of cold. 

  
"Trouble ahead, my lady," Steve leaned forward and whispered into her ear, his lips turning up in a smile she could feel when she shivered at the low, dulcet tones of his voice.

  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, Darcy could see Natasha slide off of her own horse, hands delving into pockets for weapons.  Steve took her preoccupation to his advantage and got off the horse they had been sharing. He quickly divested himself of his cloak and wrapped it around Darcy with a flourish.

  
  
"My lady, stay here, and stay safe and warm," Steve requested with a boyish smile.  

  
  
"Uhmmm," Darcy furrowed her brow, but her confusion went unnoticed by Steve, who retrieved his shield and sword and ran forward with Natasha.

  
  
She racked her brain for information about this oncoming frigid land.  The Lady Warrior Sif had gone over a quick map of where they would be travelling through, and she had said that Thor's brother Loki had hailed from somewhere cold and dark.  He had wrinkled his nose at this information being shared and had sulked off muttering about the cold lands being home to the 'cold hearted vibrantly coloured idiots like the rock and the bald headed beast woman'.   

  
  
Sif had deemed them harmless, though.  Despite the fact that Loki appeared to be far from harmless.

  
  
And now the very deadly Lady Natasha and Sir Steven were going into the icy caves, armed to the teeth and blood lust twinkling in their eyes.  

  
  
"When did blood lust twinkle with orange?" Darcy whispered, once again feeling like this was all very wrong.   

  
Natasha and Steve were deadly, to be sure, but Darcy knew that neither of these people would ever go and kill innocent beings without being provoked first.  They didn't go and hunt them, definitely. Captain America's only weapon was a shield, for cripe's sake he---   


"Captain---" Darcy whispered.  She shook her head and tried to clear the thick fog of the fantasy world she had been dropped in courtesy of the soul stone, but found it next to impossible.  "Cap---"  


The sound of swords clanging hard against something and a roar of pain shook her out of the moment of lucidity, and she threw off Steve's fur lined cloak and quickly scrambled off of the very, very high horse that Steve had placed her on hours ago---days ago?  She wasn't entirely sure any longer. She dug in one of the saddle bags and pulled out a small blade, probably meant for shaving and not battle, and ran to the sound of the scuffle.  


"LEAVE THIS PLACE!" a loud, screeching voice called out in annoyance and there was more sounds of metal and armor colliding.  "I want no part of this!"  


Darcy ran, snow and frost filling up the boots that were more ideally suited for running through sun warmed fields than for inches of frozen slush and ice.  She followed the sounds of the battle and winced when she saw Natasha and Steve fighting against a green woman of the Frost mountains. It was a woman, and while she looked far from harmless, she had claimed to want no part of this, and was currently being attacked by two very impressive warriors in Natasha and Steve.  
  


"Leave her!" Darcy shouted.  "She's done no wrong!"

  
  
"Lady Darcy, go back to the horses," Natasha ordered.

  
  
"FUCK THAT!" Darcy spat out and ran as fast as her cold feet could carry her, avoiding Natasha's attempted grabbing of her person.  She stood in front of the green woman and glared at Steve. "What has she done to warrant her death, Sir?" 

  
"I---what?" Steve repeated back.  "She is---she is, an enemy."   
  
"She was sleeping in her home and you attacked her, how does this make her an enemy?" Darcy demanded right back taking the little blade and pointing it (fairly harmlessly) at Steve’s left earlobe.   
  
"Well, I--- why do you?" Steve shook his head in confusion.  His nostrils flared as even his breathing became annoyed. He turned away from Darcy and the cave was illuminated by a gentle orange glow.     
  
The green woman made a displeased grunting sound and suddenly looked a lot more interested in fighting than she had before.  And then, to Darcy's great concern and confusion, the vision of the green woman melted away right in front of her eyes.   
  
"What is going on?" Darcy demanded before she felt a thwapping pain between her eyes and everything went black.

 

* * *

  
 ** _ **Wakanda**_ **   
  
  
Korg had insisted that Nebula stay behind with her sister, much to Steve's chagrin, and the two unlikely companions sat by the bedsides of two women who had had contact with the soul stone.  Shuri had made the both of them swear to all they held dear that they would behave or forever be banned from the medical building. And she had also said something about testing a nanotech polymer that would have their hands glued to their asses, so Steve and Nebula had both agreed to behave while they waited for Shuri to have some kind of result on Darcy or Gamora's current state. 

  
Nebula hadn't bothered to apologize for man-handling Steve earlier, simply stared at him, cocked her head slightly to the left, and immediately went back to reading to her sister.

  
  
"Oh look, this one has a Princess who can outrun her aggressor without proper footwear," Nebula said softly to Gamora's unresponsive form.  "In a dress that appears to weigh twenty lire, so that's impressive."

  
  
"Cinderella?" Steve questioned.

  
  
"The small unbeatable genius said to be quiet," Nebula muttered, turning the page of the fairytale book and looking mildly impressed at the pictures and words on it.

  
  
"She told us not to beat each other senseless, she didn't say anything about quiet," Steve countered.

  
  
"And yet, if you talk, I may have to beat you senseless," Nebula answered back quickly and then snorted in her own amusement.  "Gamora, you would enjoy this one, she has an army of dwarves to do her bidding. The weaponry seems dated, but useful. I shall ask my new King to ask the tiny genius to make me one."

  
  
"Why do you call Darcy your King?" Steve asked, only barely managing to not sound entirely suspicious.  "You never met before, did you?"

  
  
"No, but after a lifetime of serving pure maniacal evil, even an idiot would recognize the purest soul in the room and devote their power to supporting their agenda," Nebula rattled off in her serious monotone.  

  
  
"Yeah," Steve looked down at Darcy with worry.  He put one finger on the end of a curly lock of brown hair and gently twirled it around his finger.

  
  
Nebula watched the gentle touch and rolled her eyes.  She looked back down at the storybook she had lifted from the Sanctum in New York and saw the picture of one of the princess warriors being kissed by the aggressor.  The army of dwarves celebrated their leader's awakening. 

  
"You must apply this kiss," Nebula ordered, holding up the book.  "Your people are primitive, but true love amongst pure souls is real in the stupidest of people, even."

  
  
"I---that doesn't seem," Steve wanted to laugh at the suggestion, but after thinking of what likely had Darcy in her vegetative state---a deal made with an incorporeal power trapped within a pretty orange bauble, well, it didn't seem completely OUT of the question.  "We haven't kissed yet. It doesn't seem right with her not awake."

  
  
Nebula groaned out in annoyance.  "You humans fighting on the side of your so-called angels.  She would enjoy it should it save her life. I promise not to tell her how bad you might be at it."

  
  
"You know, I can tell you recently spent far too much time with Stark," Steve snapped at the reluctant daughter of Thanos.  He then immediately stared at Darcy's lips, and despite her comatose state, they still were beautiful and full and red and so damned kissable that Steve could feel his insides give a small, pleasant lurch.  "I mean--stranger things have happened. Probably within the last five minutes."

  
  
Nebula hummed in response and watched as Steve moved forward, his lips hovering over Darcy's before moving up slightly and placing a gentle kiss on the bridge of her nose.  Nebula huffed out an annoyed sound and placed her book to the side, ready to stand up and show this supposed leader of Earthlings how to properly kiss her King, when Darcy's eyes flew open.

  
  
The blue shade of them was entirely eclipsed with a golden shimmer.  

  
  
"Darcy?" Steve questioned, amazed and terrified in that moment.

  
  
Small, cold hands went for his throat, and while he would never have accused Darcy of being weak before, she had certainly never been so strong.  Definitely not strong enough to lift Steve up and off of his feet, throwing him straight across the room and into the wall. 

  
Nebula stood on her feet, her grin absolutely feral in its ghoulish delight.

  
  
"Excellent, the King is much better now, come on, we'll go find Rocks and get some work done finally."

  
  
Darcy looked to Nebula, eyes still glowing orange and Nebula huffed out an annoyed snort through her nose, her head going backwards slightly as she fought off whining.

  
  
"You know, Soul Stone, no wonder you had to hide away so far and for so long.  You are really a---" Nebula struggled to think of what Rocket would have called it.  "A log of excrement."

  
  
"And you are filthy, just like your kin," the soul stone spoke through Darcy, gesturing with a nod of her head to the prone Gamora.  She turned and looked to Steve, who was struggling back to his feet. "Tell me, pitiful old one, what are your secrets?" 

  
"What?" Steve demanded.

  
  
Darcy's face was contorted in a macabre mask of terrifying unfounded glee.  She rose from the bed and advanced on Steve, her human body not quite moving correctly, each step mechanical and forced.  Steve looked at her in confusion, but couldn't bring himself to physically stop her from getting the unnaturally strong hand around his neck again.

  
  
"Show me, Captain.  Show me how I can make your soul match, my lovely Darcy---" 

  
"What?" Steve demanded as Darcy's form wavered, swaying slightly, her strength letting up for a moment before coming back.  "What do you want with Darcy?" 

  
"She is mine, and will be mine for all of eternity."   
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Thanks to biblioworm, who last week in the comments suggested true loves kiss and inspired that bit in the last scene. 
> 
> And as far as comments go. Thanks so much for them. I didn’t get an opportunity to respond last week but will try to find time this time. 
> 
> See you in two weeks with an update. Enjoy captain marvel this weekend!!!!


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